i: 



AUTUMN LEAVES, 



y 



SAMUEL JACKSON GAEDNEE. 




N E W Y O R K : 
PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON, 

401 Broadway, coknek of Walker Street. 
1865. -f.- 



ill 




U., y^./^c^ 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 

Augustus K. Gardner, M. D. 

in the Clerk's OfBceof the District Court for the Southern District of New York. 



1 



i 3 ^ 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE : 

STEREOTTPED AND PRINTED BY 

H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



CONTENTS. 



PAQB 

The New Year 1 

Liberty 10 

The Man of Independent Opinions . . .13 

Conversation 18 

Good-Nature 24 

False Estimate of Men 26 

Spring 33 

Ode 40 

Spare that Bird 42 

Influence of Place on Character ... 47 

To KaAov — the Beautiful 50 

The Looker-On 52 

The Sonnet 61 

November 62 

The Way to enjoy the Country . . . .63 

Parallel between a Mosquito and a Fly . 69 

Babies 74 

A Passage of Life 77 

No Sabbath for Them 79 

Exaggeration in Conversation ... 83 

Man with a Cane 87 

"Poor Richard" denounced .... 91 



■VI CONTENTS. 

VkQZ 

Muscle 96 

The Horse-Race and Bull-Fight . . . 101 

Change 104 

Style 108 

Letter of a Dog to his biped Fellow-Citizen 112 

Haste 118 

Cooks and Cookery 121 

The Egotist 133 

Effect of the Increase of Gold . . . 137 

The Intercepted Letter 143 

They would be Young Ladies and Gentlemen 145 

Large Noses 151 

Self-made Men 156 

Hall-Stove and broken Pane .... 160 

Great Men 162 

Post-Prandium Eloquence .... 165 

Short Memories 170 

Champagne 176 

The Fast Man • . .178 

Temptations of the Night .... 182 

The Novel-Reader 187 

The Profession of Medicine . . . . 191 

Social Customs 195 

Boston 200 

Foreign Travel 204 

The Late Man 212 

Neighborly Courtesy 217 

quiddling 223 

The Unknown Man 228 

Jests and Jesting 235 

Sugar and Vinegar in Man 239 

The Plausible Man 242 



CONTENTS. YH 

PAGB 

Pleasure of being a Grandfather . . . 246 

Old Age 251 

To My Mother 253 

Chess 255 

The Speech-Maker 259 

The Accordion 265 

There 's Light in the Tomb 270 

A Sonnet 271 

The Pastor 272 

Dark Churches 276 

In Memoriam . . . . . . . . 279 

Value op Monuments 281 

Christmas 286 

The Burial 291 

The Waning Year 292 

Rebellion against a Free Government. . 297 
Farewell 299 





AUTUMN LEAVES. 




THE NEW YEAR. 

OW odd it is that the first month of the 
New Year, which will come in to-morrow as 
punctually as the Sun, — the youngest of 
the twelve sisters, — should be figured as an old 
man, one Aquarius, with a long flowing beard, and 
likewise a long water-pot and flowing water. He 
looks almost as ancient as Father Time himself, and 
might easily be mistaken for that old gentleman, if 
he had an hour-glass and scythe, showing his oc- 
cupation to be to mow down the grass, while our 
friend Aquarius has been, certainly ever since we 
saw him in the Almanac a great while ago, perpet- 
ually employed in irrigating the clover to make it 



Strange, how remarkably well the world bears its 
age ; the last New Year looked as fresh and comely 
as it did in the time of Methuselah, — we will not 
say of Adam, because of that we are not quite 



2 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

certain, — and there is not the least doubt that to- 
morrow will have as few wrinkles in her face as any 
preceding New Year's Day, at whatever age of the 
world. Though Time is as old as the hills, yet a 
day, which is part of it, is as fresh and youthful as 
the flower that will bloom in June upon the moun- 
tain-side. Just so with that other piece of an- 
tiquity, the Ocean, which has sometimes even 
been taken as a symbol of eternity. It must there- 
fore be allowed to be venerable enough ; and still 
the little white-capped waves, that run up in the 
sweet summer morning to kiss a child's bare ver- 
milion toes upon the hard sandy beach, are as 
young and frolicsome as any infant of them all. 
Men and women may be old to-morrow, — at least 
the men may, — older than they were ten years ago ; 
but the rosy hours of the day itself may and ought 
to be to them as joyous, new, and full of vivacious 
thoughts as their little tricksy grandchildren. 

Some think that the New Year preaches, and so 
they go to preaching also. I shall do no such thing. 
That is the business of the Old Year ; so that part 
of the service will be considered to be over. The 
singing comes next. That is humbly conceived to 
be the true office of New Year's Day. The New 
Year sings. When shall a man ever sing, if not 
when another year has come, and he finds he is 
alive, and as happy as may be, in the possession of 



THE NEW YEAR. 3 

troops of friends, more or less real, as the experi- 
ence is. For this let us rejoice and sing ; it is no 
time to be sad. Has there been sorrow in the year 
that is gone ? That is dead, and let the dead bury 
its dead, and its sorrows with it. The New Year 
is full of fruition and of hope ; like the young 
orange-tree, it bears fruit and blossoms at the same 
time. 

The remarkable spectacle of the rising up of a 
whole sex, and bowing down before another — to 
woman, is proof of a celestial power beyond the 
mandates of a statute-book. No more need to en- 
force an observance of woman's rights, where such 
respect is voluntary, than it would be for legislatures 
to reenact the laws of nature. Nor is this femi- 
nine prerogative limited to the first day of the year. 
To make it lasting, men assemble, then, in the draw- 
ing-rooms of the fair, and enter into a covenant, 
sometimes, they do say, sealed with a kiss, that the 
allegiance pledged at that time shall be continued 
throughout the rest of the year. For this purpose 
good care is taken to have their names recorded in 
a book, so that they may be charged with various 
gallant duties during the succeeding months. In 
this proceeding there is a strong resemblance to the 
customs of the Jews in the reign of Augustus 
Cs&sar, who went up at a stated period to Jerusalem 
to be taxed. In the modern practice the taxes 



4 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

enacted are of the most agreeable description, not 
confined to money-matters by any means, though 
these are not neglected, but comprehending the 
obligation of gratifying pleasant feminine desires, 
commands, and caprices of all sorts and kinds, in all 
places and times. How much more delightful and 
really valuable this undisputed sway, spontaneously 
accorded, than to have the world's dirty political 
drudgery forever upon their hands ! 

The custom of renewing sentiments of regard 
and gallantry to the other sex on the first of 
January, we take to be a relic of the old spirit of 
chivalry, which required the utmost deference to 
ladies on all occasions, and a firm resolution to de- 
fend them from all manner of wrong. This, be it 
understood, is the implied obligation of all men who 
make visits on the New Year. " Why, this is a very 
serious business, really ; we must be sober. Jack." 
" Certainly you must, dear Sir. Intoxication on 
New Year's is suicide, or flat burglary at least. 
Take care, for on this day frequentl}^ appears that 
famous first glass which, when offered by the hand 
of beauty, and recommended by her seductive voice, 
has slain its tens of thousands. Dash it from the 
lip." 

There could never have been a period when a 
point of time corresponding with our New Year 
was not an occasion of rejoicing. A time must 



THE NEW YEAR. 5 

have once existed when men became alarmed at 
observing the gradual recession of their only source 
of light and heat. Before astronomy had revealed 
the knowledge of the revolutions of the planets, 
apprehension must at this season have seized upon 
the minds of all that the sun might possibly aban- 
don the earth entirely to eternal frost and darkness. 
An exultation, then, must have been experienced 
in some proportion to their previous fears, upon 
observing him at length first pausing in the winter 
solstice in his passage to the south, and then begin- 
ning gradually, as he had retired, to return to the 
abodes of men. So wonderful an event as this must 
have impressed all minds with the profoundest awe, 
which even the annual repetition of the phenom- 
enon for six thousand years to the view of men has 
not had the power entirely to extinguish. 

The Old Year and the century preceding it 
have left us a noble inheritance. If we have the 
spirit of grateful heirs, and not of the juveniles of 
the rising generation, which is in danger of spoiling 
like sour beer by excessive fermentation, the estate 
may be much augmented. But, somehow or other, 
it always happens, that, in spite of the improvements 
and inventions of the century, humanity seems not 
destined to elevate itself much above its present 
sphere any more than -it has been able to add a 
cubit to its stature. 



6 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

Notwithstanding the accumulation of ingenious 
discoveries and contrivances, the lever essential to 
lift them from the level where their original facul- 
ties have placed them seems not to be among the 
machines yet patented at Washington. The world 
lags far behind its hopes and prophetic visions. 
Performance does not proceed parallel with ex- 
pectation. 

We are perpetually slipping from the ladder on 
which we are attempting to ascend. One would 
suppose that the acquisitions of every year and cen- 
tury, if properly improved and added to the com- 
mon stock, w^ould swell the powers and capacities 
of the race to the limit of theoretic calculation. 
But hypothesis is sobered down by fact, and it is 
found that man does not grow^ better or wiser with 
any greater rapidity than he grows richer. So Dr. 
Price indeed long since proved that a penny put at 
compound interest at the Christian Era would have 
amounted long ago to the value of a lump of gold 
many times larger than the earth ! The powers of 
arithmetic are evidently superior to those of human 
nature. Every man unfortunately has to begin 
where Watt and Newton did, and three or four 
generations will record no growth, though they 
probably wdll a dissipation of the golden lump of 
the Astors. If one would commence where they 
left off, and every generation could stand on the 



THE NEW YEAR. 7 

shoulders of its predecessor, human nature would 
ascend. As it is, it takes a lifetime to learn to do 
as well and think as well, and know as much as 
those who have gone before us, and carried away 
with them almost all that made them what they 
were. What they have left behind is comparatively 
little beside their own example, and such odds and 
ends as are always abandoned upon removals from 
one residence to another. In this way it is as much 
as each generation can perform to get possession of 
the capital of human acquisition and preserve it, so 
that little time or ability is left to add any interest, 
according to the theory of progress, to the princi- 
pal. It is even more than nations have done here- 
tofore to preserve the principal without loss. Such 
a disaster has several times occurred in history, and 
the invention of printing seems the only security 
which we have even now, that similar catastrophes 
shall not occur again. 

As New Year is a famous holiday, it does seem 
singular that one of the very shortest days, and, we 
may add also, likely to be one of the coldest of them 
too, should be hit on in which to celebrate it. In 
this respect the thing was better managed, if it ex- 
isted, when the year by common consent commenced 
in March, as was the case just previous to the time 
of Addison and Steele, as the old editions of the 
" Spectator " will testify to their scientific reader. 
But what with the reformation of the Calendar by 



8 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

Gregory, the English statute law, and the precision 
of the equinoxes, plain people will, by and by, not 
be able to decipher the season of the year at all. 
The learned in such matters already assure us, 
that, as the dog-days ages ago occurred in June at 
the heliacal rising of the Dog-star Syrius, so ages 
hence they will for the same reason happen in 
October. About that time, too, we shall no longer 
look for the North Pole to the cynosure in the tail 
of the Little Bear, but somewhere in the neighbor- 
hood of Vega in the constellation of the Lyre. This 
is perfect truth, notwithstanding the last suspicious 
word. Then, and not till then, as we fear, will take 
place that happy era of good feelings, so much 
longed and looked for, when Americans will know 
no North nor South, but rejoice in felicitous igno- 
rance both of the points of the compass and of sec- 
tional dissensions. 

But, as has been said, the anniversary of the 
year's nativity happens now in the dead of winter 
in this latitude, and it becomes us, therefore, to 
make the best of it. And does not everybody try 
with all his miMit to do so ? No one can doubt this 
fact, who observes the desperate efforts made by 
many to be happy, or make believe so. If they do 
economically pick the shortest day in the year to be 
merry in, can anybody take more trouble to make 
a pain of pleasure than they do ? They borrow 
of the night to increase its length, and swallow 



THE NEW YEAR. 9 

terrible bitters to render it sweet. If it is impossi- 
ble actually to augment the number of the holiday 
hours, many succeed entirely in making them and 
other things appear double, by a suitable and judi- 
cious application of the " Original Packages." 

But the future, — the obscure, the distant, the 
uncertain, hopeful future, — what of that? It pos- 
sesses a very different coloring for the young and 
for the old. The pencil of Titian, dipt in heaven's 
rainbows, would not paint it in hues so brilliant as 
imagined by the fancy of the one, nor that of Buo- 
narotti, in shadow^s deep enough to equal the gloomy 
apprehensions which sometimes cloud the minds of 
the other. The past of a long life may be affirmed 
to be a remarkably pleasant contemplation. But 
note this,. — the fa%t of the old man is the future of 
the youth ; the sad or sober experience of the one is 
what the bright hope of the other is made of, for it 
was once his own. Such are the materials, young 
man, from which anticipations of happiness are 
w^oven. Beautiful embroideries are they ; but as 
the richest lace-work covers aching bosoms, so are 
these airy webs of hope ever inviting us onward, 
but almost always fade, if they do not vanish on 
their approach. He who expects least, we believe, 
generally enjoys most ; and this is a reward and 
encouragement for moderation equally in business 
and in pleasure. 






LIBERTY. 

O, Liberty ! 
What savage fire thy face is flushing ! 
And see ! thy hands with crimson blushing, 

Bloodshot thine eye ! 
Gods ! must thou come forever rushing 
With massacre and madness, crushing 

Those thou wouldst free ? 

O, Liberty ! 
'T was ever thus, in classic ages, 
From bold Thrasybulus through pages 

Of history, 
Man's rights, ne'er won by saints nor sages. 
Were earned, the bitter blood-wages 

Of victory ! 

O, Liberty ! 
Exiled to catacomb, or manger, 
Spurned through the universe, a stranger, 

Or enemy ; 
Thy native element is danger ; 
Thy awful office, the avenger 

Of slavery ! 



LIBERTY. 11 

O, Liberty! 
Up ! up ! The victim 's on the altar ; 
Doubt not and tremble not, nor falter, 

Beyond the sea ; 
Nay ! With no double purpose palter ; 
Fear nothing — guillotine nor halter ; 

'T is destiny ! 

O, Liberty ! 
America, the age's wonder, 
The crash of revolution thunder. 

And battle-cry, — 
Rending old monarchies asunder. 
Avenging centuries of plunder, — 

Shall pass you by ! 

O, Liberty! 
The angel, which the earth is smiting, 
Upon your doors, in bloody writing, 

The sign shall see, — 
Red symbol of your sire's inditing, 
For life and independence fighting, — 

And from you flee ! 

O, Liberty ! 
At length the long-expected morning 
Of risen humanity is dawning : 

Pray God it be ! 
The bow of hope the sky 's adorning. 
Though lingering clouds still mutter warning 

To tyranny ! 



12 



AUTUMN LEAVES. 



O, Liberty! 
Won by our sires in battles gory, 
They left us freedom crowned by glory, 

Their legacy*! 
Set it, brave countrymen, before ye, 
In stone, on canvas, and in story ; 

It shall not die ! 






THE MAN OF INDEPENDENT OPINIONS. 

HE man of independent opinions feels him- 
self of great consequence on that account, 
taking fiill as much pride in their indepen- 
dence as their correctness. He holds on to them 
with obstinate tenacity, not because they are true, 
but because they are his. He flatters himself that 
so tight a hold of a thing argues strength. And so 
it does ; but of what ? Of understanding ? Not 
always, any more than the grip of a vice proves it 
to have a powerful mind. It may be temper, it may 
be doggedness, it may be, like the vice, the grip of 
a double blockhead. 

A man of independent opinions is severe in his 
judgments. Not content with pronouncing another 
to be wrong, he is apt to think, and sometimes says, 
that he is not only wrong, but knows it. He 
charges him with being criminally erroneous ; err- 
ing on purpose and with bad motives. If any one 
is what he calls independent in his sentiments, 
which, according to him, very few are beside him- 
self, it is accepted as proof of correctness. He 



14 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

desires in fact no better evidence of another's in- 
fallibility tlian that he differs from almost everybody 
else. Believing the right way to be always narrow, 
he cannot be complimented as a person of broad 
and generous sentiments ; on the contrary, though 
strong, they are contracted. Indeed, he grasps 
things with such a force as to crush or dwarf them 
with the very violence of his approval. 

It is sometimes remarked, that he of independent 
opinions is conspicuous for integrity ; that he is 
more honest than other people. Gruffness and 
grossness pass with some for sincerity, while suavity 
is held suspicious. But there is often to be found 
quite as much of the cat beneath the lion's hide as 
under the lamb's. Integrity is not a thing of man- 
ners, nor even of the temper. It is not a thing at 
all, but a principle of the moral sentiments quick- 
ened into life and action by the warmth of the heart. 
It may reside within him who was born to differ, 
but just as likely too in the man who is inclined by 
nature to agree. 

It must be admitted that the usefulness of the 
man of independent opinions is not remarkable. 
A sort of innate contrariness renders him an odd 
stick, that makes it impracticable sometimes to work 
him into the social edifice. He will not keep 
parallel with the rest of the timber, nor exactly 
perpendicular either ; nor cut precisely any of the 



THE MAN OF INDEPENDENT OPINIONS. 15 

conic sections, so that calculations may be made 
upon him. He will see just as he pleases, and no 
otherwise ; and so he is not of so much value as 
his really good qualities would seem to adapt him to 
be. But if there happens to be a great deal of 
him, he may do something all alone by himself, as 
an advance-guard, or forlorn hope in society. 

There are numerous counterfeits or affectations 
of this species of independence. They are as dis- 
gusting as they are impudent. One who has never 
had any social position, or has lost it, can lose no 
more by coming out from the crowd and setting 
up for himself. Having found that thinking and 
acting very much as others do has not paid, he re- 
solves on trying what differing will effect for him. 
He protests against this and that, calls in question 
principles that have been settled ever since the flood, 
and dresses up his crude, superficial notions into 
quite a specious sort of philosophy, at least for 
the million. If he is a politician, he dashes away, 
like Junius in malignity, not in grace or genius, 
at the miserable men who happen to have the mis- 
fortune to be in office. Nothing they do for the 
interior or exterior of the country, nothing they 
spend or save, — whatever they do or omit, — 
es'capes his censure. He is up to them, down on 
them, and into them. No age, no acquirements, 
no genius or celebrity, not death itself, can aAve 



16 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

him. He speaks his independent thought right out, 
freely, hit or hurt whom it may, contradicting the 
greatest authorities and names — his own among the 
rest — once at least every day. Why not ? Should 
not a man be independent ? Should he be afraid of 
anybody, or chained by slavery to a man, a party ; 
to consistency or truth ? — No. 

And as he deals with sentiments, so with motives. 
" The conduct of the government is unprecedented 
and mistaken," he says ; but that is nothing, unless 
he adds, " it is also flagitious and corrupt." ''' The 
course which a high officer has seen fit to pursue 
has been purchased by the grossest bribery." *' The 

Senator from would not have expressed such 

sentiments, if he had not been tampered with, and 

it is easy to see by whom." " The editor of 

knew, when he wrote the words we have quoted, 
that he lied ; — he never mistakes, but always fal- 
sifies." 

Your man of independent opinions is thus seen to 
be independent also in his speech and conduct. In 
fact, he is, as he assumes, the only one who is so, 
and is consequently entitled as of right to deal his 
freedoms about with no regard to character either 
of himself or others. There is but one animal 
known in nature hereabouts, we believe, that is 
armed with a fluid which renders it terrible, be- 
cause it is hateful to all others, and obtains its 



THE MAN OF INDEPENDENT OPINIONS. 17 

advantages by its ability to excite disgust instead of 
dread. It gains its point by making itself an object, 
not to be feared, but shunned. Has this odious 
creature any likeness to the Man of Independent 
Opinions ? 





CONVERSATION. 

ONVERSATION is the act of interchang- 
ing ideas by familiar speech or discourse. 
There must then be two persons at least 
to carry it on, and the communication of thoughts 
must be free and unrestrained. Another ingre- 
dient in the definition is, that there must be ideas, 
sentiments, thoughts. There is no difficulty in any 
part of the definition but this ; and here confession 
is to be made, that a question may arise as to its 
correctness. If one were to find out what conver- 
sation actually is by listening, he would, of course, 
leave thoughts out of the definition, as people leave 
them out in their practice. But we venture to in- 
corporate them in deference to ancient tradition. 

Conversation is not a speech, nor a series of any 
such wire-drawn expansions of dulness. Neither is 
it twattle about books, nor story-telling. Some 
men, when an idea is struck out by an interlocutor, 
which happens to hit their cranium, instead of send- 
ing it back with interest, instantly fall into a remi- 
niscence, and begin to narrate what a certain man 



CONVERSATION. 19 

said to him on a certain occasion, or what occuiTed 
to himself on another. By the time this pedlar of 
old wares gets to the end of his narrative, the spon- 
taneous stream of talk has been dammed up. The 
shuttlecock has been suffered to fall by the bun- 
gling player, and now the game is at an end, or must 
be set on foot again by some one who can " keep 
robin alive." Hence the nimble-witted conversa- 
tionist is known as the life of every party. 

There is a graceful skill in fine conversation, and 
women have it in perfection, as far as its machinery 
goes. How rapid the motion of the wheels so well 
lubricated and so easy, — but, alas, for the grist ! 
With a gentle, voluble, and most agreeable clatter, 
sometimes rising into sounds like drops of honey 
falling on bells of silver, how charmingly the notes 
of female conversation come to the ear ! Pity, they 
should sometimes reach no further. If conversation 
were song, what music should we have ? But it is 
not sound exclusively, however the general practice 
would make one believe it to be. 

There are exceptions among women, as among 
men. Not all, by any means, suppose the conversa- 
tion to be this trivial, empty thing. Yet fine talk 
is certainly rare, and the few examples of it in the 
intercourse of even cultivated men are sufiicient to 
create a suspicion, or a hope at any rate, that men 
are prosers in the parlor, because, like Adam Smith, 



20 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

they are saving their ideas for their books. Other- 
wise, it is difficult to account for the multitude of 
men whom we are taught to look upon at a distance 
as wits and scholars, who turn out to be, across the 
table, merely witlings and pedants. 

Men, however, have a title to be twattlers in 
talk, and bores in letter-writing. Their brains are 
put every hour almost to such hard scullion and 
mill-work as to be incapable, even under the lash 
of other peoples' wit, of getting out of the draught- 
horse gait. But the gentle, the sensitive, and mag- 
netic sex — why should their ethereal spirits effer- 
vesce and exhale into invisible air, without leaving 
anything substantial behind ? Conversation is, and 
should be, their empire, where they do, and ought 
to, sit upon the throne. Aye, and do they not, like 
other princesses, seek to weigh these rather by the 
Divine right of the physical beauty they inherit 
than of mental charms of their own acquisition ? 
We do not make the accusation, but may we not to 
some extent lament, that woman should not occupy 
and adorn the sphere first assigned her of leading 
and shining in conversation, instead of declaiming 
and expounding in the market-place and forum, 
where she can neither lead nor shine ? 

Women might be at home in this skilful act of 
fence, — in the pungent, not venomous sally, the 
q-uick retort, — in the suggestive remark, which 



CONVERSATION. 21 

being the birth of the moment, seems like inspira- 
tion, — the beautiful sentiment, and pathetic touch 
of feeling, — not excluding gentle satire, pointed, 
yet polite, — in keen, though courteous, criticism. 
She might be admired for her raillery, if without 
railing ; learned she might be as an Aspasia or De 
Stael, if not overloaded. Eloquence even might be 
forgiven in the conversation of the fine woman or 
sensible man ; but it will be tolerated only when it 
cannot be helped, as it bursts out spontaneously and 
unawares, not staying to put on the stiff brocades 
and lace ruffles of full-dressed rhetoric. Your set 
rhetorician, tricked out in all his finery and preten- 
sion, is an abomination in the domestic circle, and 
a scarecrow to conversation, frightening away not 
only that unwelcome bird, but scores of little chirp- 
ers and songsters, that help to harmonize and diver- 
sify the general chorus. 

Women, however, are not chargeable with this 
fault, though some are beginning to tiy and see if 
they cannot prose and preach and be as dull as men. 
When they have once established their equal claim, 
they will be also rewarded, as men are, with indif- 
ference, contempt, and neglect. Insipidity is the 
rock of the fair sex. Gossip is good in its place ; 
but that place is in the kitchen. Its essence is fri- 
volity when it is not detraction. It is a dish of bitter 
herbs served up with sharp acids — provocative of 



22 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

an appetite for calumny. Gossips somehow or other 
have "come to be considered of the feminine gender, 
we believe. The lexicon and observation tell a 
different tale. Some of the arrantest of the genus 
have been and are men, who impart to petty talk a 
harshness, and sometimes poison, unknown, it is 
hoped, to female lips. Gossip of that base sort 
becomes a traitor, conspiring against the peace of a 
neighborhood or circle, instead of a ridiculous tri- 
fler and quidnunc^ and therefore ought to be hated 
and exterminated — not simply tolerated, laughed 
at, and despised. 

Though we have thus had our little gossip about 
conversation, the delightful but much-abused enter- 
tainment of so many hours, — the want of which is 
more to be regretted than that of either riches or 
honors, — and have not attempted to discuss the 
subject, yet we cannot think of concluding without 
entering a protest against making it the vehicle of 
slander, immorality, irreligion, or lies of any sort. 
Conversation must be always pure, even if it is 
poor. Never is it so thoroughly despicable and 
mean as when it treats virtue and good men with 
gibes and scoffs, in order to let off a pun, or tickle 
the ear with a sarcasm. Ill-temper is bad enough 
in private intercourse, in all conscience ; but the 
baseness of hurting another's feelings, or damaging 
a good cause from the miserable vanity of showing 



CONVERSATION. 23 

off a talent one imagines he possesses, far transcends 
any epithets of abhorrence we can now apply to the 
offence. 

It may be observed that nothing has been said 
against the vices of flattery and compliment. The 
reason is, that our national proclivity is not to a 
profusion of compliments, and so little danger exists 
of its excessive indulgence. 




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GOOD-NATURE. 

SWEET and amiable temper constitutes a 
more attractive element of character than 
— ' do the most precisely correct principles. 
We are not disposed to stop now to quarrel about 
the relative merit of the two. Some will say, no 
doubt, that a benignant, genial disposition is God's 
donation, and that principles of strict and systematic 
accuracy are our own acquisition ; that we are in- 
debted for the one ; for the other, on the contrary, 
entitled to much credit. We neither acknowledge 
nor deny ; we hate to be always giving reasons, as 
much as Falstaff did. Ethics shall decide the mat- 
ter any way ; provided there shall be left to us the 
liberty of loving the good-tempered person, and 
only respecting the other. 

The other day we happened to fall in with a 
casual specimen of a good-natured gentleman. 
He had some time before been unjustly treated, as 
he thought, by another person in a negotiation ; and 
was accordingly, though of a happy temperament, 
considerably incensed. Mr. A. (so we will call 



GOOD-NATURE. 25 

him) resolved never to hold intercourse again with 
the man who had offended him ; and he said so. 
Mark how the flint carried fire. About a month 
afterwards, a friend, acquainted with the circum- 
stance, received a note from him, recommending 
the person who had done the wrong to a lucrative 
situation in the bank where he was one of the di- 
rectors. The friend was much surprised of course ; 
and a day or two afterwards, meeting Mr. A., in- 
quired " how he came to be exertmg himself in 
benefiting an enemy against whom he had vowed 
revenge." He opened his eyes, and seemed just 
waked up to a consciousness of the position of 
affairs. " Why, to confess the truth," said he, " I 
did not recollect that little circumstance at all. 
The next time I have a quarrel to revenge," he ob- 
served, with a smile, " I must take care to make a 
memorandum of it." We shall not much fear the 
spite of a gentleman who has to write it in a note- 
book, lest he may forget it. Let us all show our 
indignation at injuries done us, by aiding the wrong- 
doer to obtain employment. If such advice is 
taken, we cannot answer for the consequences. 
One will be, in all probability, to do away with a 
great many anti-societies ; which, we take it, is an 
abbreviation of the antipathy-societies. 





FALSE ESTIMATE OF MEN. 

T is a dangerous mistake that we fall into 
unawares when we attribute to an indi- 
vidual a capacity for some particular thing, 
because he is seen to possess a faculty for another 
particular thing. The error is not the less in fact, 
because there is a specious show of logic to uphold 
it. A clergyman, for example, lends his name to 
a certificate of the virtues of a nostrum ; or, still 
more ambitiously perhaps, to an entire theory of 
medicine. Or, a physician pronounces with similar 
presumption on the merits of a dictionary, or a 
point of constitutional law. 

Now, every man is entitled to his opinion on 
every matter beneath the sun, and to talk hke 
a fool, if he chooses, concerning things beyond 
and above that luminary, as some have lately 
done, I fear, about the planet Neptune. Men 
who have come, somewhat late in life, into the 
possession of their fortunes, (in consequence of 
being obliged to earn them first,) may talk with 
ludicrous pretension at the head of their tables 



FALSE ESTIMATE OF MEN. 27 

about the different vintages of their wines, and the 
merit of their pictures, as if success in business 
brought them learning as well as luxury. This is 
not the trouble. The misery is, that what such 
men assert is felt unhappily to possess a weight, of 
which it is not by any means deserving. The 
sophistry is here. The clergyman has probably 
convinced the public, at least a portion of it, that 
he understands the laws of Deity and of our moral 
nature ; and is skilful in discovering remedies ap- 
pointed for their violation ; therefore he must be 
equally knowing, especially as he is frequently 
styled doctor, in relation to that of health, and the 
treatment of disease. What a palpable non sequi- 
turf It is more : it is a flagrant perversion of the 
reason. And how in the other instances mentioned, 
do the laws of physiology, current among the faculty, 
help them to an acquaintance w^ith those of States 
and nations, or to a critical analysis of language ? 
Or is there anything in the process of digging gold 
in any country, which of necessity refines and 
elevates the taste ? These are all abuses of the 
understanding, quite as real as the cup and balls of 
Signor BHtz, and attended with all the charges of 
deception without any of its pleasure. 

The truth is, that strong faculties, unlike misfor- 
tunes, which are said rarely to come single, are 
hardly ever found in clusters ; never in such pro- 



28 A UTUMN LEA VES. 

fusion as to warrant the inference of the possession 
of one power of the mind merely from the presence 
of another. And yet, unfortunately, from the very 
limited amount of information we can commonly 
obtain about our fellow-creatures, — and it is meagre 
indeed among all of us, who are not phrenologists 
nor clairvoyants, — this, in a vast variety of cases, 
is the only expedient left to decide upon the capa- 
bilities of each other. We have occasion for a 
family physician ; how shall we select him ? By 
advising with another of the faculty ? That would 
be droll indeed. And what do the rest of the wide 
world know of the medical qualifications of any 
youthful Galen? There is obviously no other 
method than to catch your candidate in a corner, 
and cross-examine him on matters on which you 
pretend yourself to have some knowledge. If, as is 
likely, you happen to know nothing, the case is 
manifestly desperate. 

On the contrary, should it be your rare good- 
fortune to be acquainted with anything whatever, 
as, for instance, the question of liberty and necessity, 
if your ^Esculapius should be as flippant and as 
shadowy as the profoundest and obscurest meta- 
physician could desire, still he may be wofully 
deficient in observing power, sagacity, and fertility 
of resources in emergencies ; and so, after all, 
though able to thread his logical way through Locke 



FALSE ESTIMATE OF MEN. 29 

and Edwards, Hume and Kant, he may be grav- 
elled by the first dubious symptom he may chance 
to encounter in the art of healing, and consequently 
be a miserable physician with all his dialectics. So 
a politician — and this is as true as unheeded — 
may hold forth eloquently on public questions, with- 
out the ability to carry the least of them into effect 
by judicious legislation ; and a parent of good preach- 
ing talents may lay down most beautiful rules for 
the regulation of families, and miserably fail in the 
application of every one of them to his own. In 
short, Newton's opinion of an epic poem might in 
all likelihood have been hardly worth the asking ; 
and Daniel Webster, it is possible, would have 
been considerably posed had he ever tried, as I 
don't believe he ever did, to write an entertaining 
novel. 

With the exception, then, of universal geniuses, if 
such creatures ever lived, whose intellects seize 
many, though not quite all, subjects with gigantic 
grasp, a man ought to thank the stars if he possesses 
one faculty rising above the surrounding level of 
dull mediocrity. 

Assuming this discriminating and sober estimate 
of the capacities of mankind, the difficulty recurs of 
using men according to their individual and appro- 
priate gifts. The mastery of a single tool gives 
wealth to a mechanic and fame to an artist. But 



30 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

to ferret out the master-faculty of a man, the most 
wonderful of all machines, and employ it to ad- 
vantage, requires a talent belonging only to men 
of superior discernment. Some conquerors and 
despots are celebrated for this force of insight, but 
it is pretty apparent every day, every electioTi-day 
at least, that in countries where the people are the 
sovereign they will be principally remarkable for 
oversight in this particular. 

Forgetful of these obvious facts, we assume some 
developments of the intellect to be exponents of its 
general powers — at any rate as indications of the 
capacity we are in pursuit of — when, if we inves- 
tigated deeper, we ought rather to suspect that the 
presence of one might be owing to the absence of 
the other. There is no faculty, perhaps, more cal- 
culated to engender error in our judgment of each 
other than the fascinating one of oratory — the fluent 
extemporaneous preaching power. This is not the 
proper place to assign the philosophical reasons for 
this remark, yet it must be said that volubility is in 
general a very equivocal evidence indeed of strength 
of thought or efficiency in action. The history of 
men who have imprinted their signet on the ages, 
is demonstration of this assertion. Still the noisy 
rhetorician passes himself off now, as he did at 
Athens in the time of Cleon, for a competent suc- 
cessor of a Pericles ; and a credulous and gaping 



FALSE ESTIMATE OF MEN. 31 

public, believing that he who can master a multitude 
of words can command of course a regiment of men 
or direct the councils of a cabinet, is simple enough 
in every age to trust him with the baton and port- 
folio. 

I had concluded to end this subject here, till some 
future time at least, when an incident arose upon 
my memory, showing what a fog we often look at 
one another through. One day a mechanic-looking 
person presented himself before me, together with a 
model, requesting my opinion of the elements of 
success rapt up in his invention. It proved, upon 
inspection, to be "a machine for splitting hides" 
to the last degree of attenuation. I was not a 
little puzzled to conjecture what he saw in a gentle- 
man of the long robe to induce him to repose con- 
fidence in my advice respecting the qualities of a 
tool which did not appear to have marked connec- 
tion with the statutes of the State, or the laws of 
nature or of nations. 

Notwithstanding some misgiving, still I proceeded 
to examine the unknown novelty with deliberate 
gravity, but said nothing. After discharging divers 
knowing looks and inarticulate sounds, and showing 
other indications of intelligence familiar to gentle- 
men of all the learned professions, I believe, I 
pronounced decidedly in favor of the applicant, and 
pocketed the usual fee. Since then, it has been a 



32 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

source of much comfort to me to learn that the 
pubhc, the great court of appeal in all cases of this 
sort, has confirmed the decision which I made. 
This was confidently anticipated, but I have never 
since been quite clear about the motive which in- 
fluenced the honest man to consult a lawyer on the 
subject. I suppose it was, however, that he thought 
he could not possibly apply to a better source for 
counsel about a machine for splitting hides than to 
a member of a profession distinguished through all 
lands for unparalleled ingenuity in splitting hairs. 



■^^-^^ 







SPRING. 

It comes in smiles and tears ; looks in a-tiptoe 

At om* vine-draped windows ; wakes us up 

With the fly's first hum, and the music of young leaves ; 

Rouses the old sap in age's sleepy veins, 

And fills breasts, yet in the milk of youth, with hope, 

Which, like a fluttering mother-bird, flies just 

Before them, tempting them by guile away 

From home's sweet nest, from comfort and repose." — MS. 

ONG and impatiently have we waited for 
you, O lovely Spring ! Ah ! you have 
seemed to our often-deferred hopes a ter- 
rible laggard during the dark cold months that we 
have been anxiously looking for your coming, 
prinked out in daffodils and crocuses, and young 
green grass. Oh, how we have longed to smell their 
delicious odors, and inhale your balmy breath, and 
the sweet scents of the genial, steaming earth, veiled 
in a dreamy mist, as if not quite awake yet from its 
long, long winter's sleep ! But you have indeed 
come at last, dear Spring ; and I will be happy, 
and think of nothing but joy. I will not whisper a 
reproacli, that you have been dallying like a faith- 
less beauty with other admirers for three quarters 

3 



34 A UTUMN LEA VES. 

of the year, and drinking in their sighs and praises, 
as you now do mine. Oh ! you false one ! How 
often have you broken your solemn promises, and 
the hearts also that trusted in you ! Yet, infatuated 
that we are, we clasp you, at each return, with irre- 
pressible ardor to our breasts. Those truthful gen- 
tlemen, the poets, have told us of your caprices, and 
we have ourselves seen Winter (shame upon your 
taste !) sometimes " lingering in the lap of May " ; 
yet have we still weakly continued to confide in 
your fidelity. It grieves me though, dear Spring, 
that you should introduce yourself with such windy 
professions as you do; but a few April tears and 
warm glances will soon, I dare say, melt our hearts, 
so that we cannot help forgiving all your peccadilloes, 
were they twice as many as they are. In the mean 
time, however, one hardly knows when to congrat- 
ulate himself on your approach, so dubious, often, 
is your appearance, any more than the proper time 
to laugh when some persons are trying to execute 
a joke. I must think, indeed, my pretty Spring, 
that you yourself are sometimes little better than a 
sorry jest. 

But I promised not to play the critic. Still, 
would that you had come sooner ! The poor, sink- 
ing invalid has been waiting, waiting to have you 
touch her emaciated limbs, and breathe upon her 
pallid brow. She has talked of your gentle eyes 



SPRING. 35 

and tender smiles, throughout the drearv months 
when the storm-blast darkened the iron heavens, 
and the north-wind shook the couch where she lay. 
Yet she was not entirely bereft of comfort. Thanks 
to you, and the good heavens ! she saw you in her 
dreams. In her sleep she often felt your soft hand 
leading her along the sunny valleys, and heard the 
blackbirds singing among the alders. How gi'eat 
must be your beauty, lovely Spring, since she thus 
beheld you in her dreams, and smiled as an infant 
to meet its absent mother. Her eyes, too, lighted 
up, though faintly, when they rested on some pot- 
ted flowers, which at your last visit you kindly left 
her ; and she made me promise to take care of and 
cherish the poor dear things when she herself should 
be no more. Ardently she longed once more to 
behold her much-loved Spring ; but, alas, she died 
without the blessed sight. And now you will not 
leave us, will you, without sprinkling her lonely 
grave with those beautiful violets she so much liked 
and resembled. 

One other person hails your benignant advent with 
a youthful, childish delight. It is she who has lis- 
tened to the tempests of nearly ninety winters, and 
cannot " stand against their awful cold." She has 
been watching and watching for your white velvet 
clouds, that she may feast her dim eyes again upon 
their dusky skirts, and enjoy the light and heat re- 



36 A UTUMN LEA VES. 

fleeted from tlieir round shining borders. The spirit 
of the aged turns with the flowers towards the sun, 
as a friend old enough to remember them in days 
that are gone, and shudders at the approach of win- 
ter, waihng with its sobbing winds over long mourn- 
ful shadows, the legacy of departed summer, and 
frightful frosts sealing up the warm currents of ani- 
mal and vegetable life. Though ready for depart- 
ure. Nature yet shrinks with dismay from taking it 
at that pitiless season amid the strife of the elements, 
and seeking its dreary home beneath the bleak, ice- 
ribbed clod. Tremblingly therefore does the poor 
nonagenarian look out of the window in the season 
of snows, and fervently invoke the \asit of the 
sweet south-winds which usher in the Spring, those 
" sightless couriers of the air," that come dropping 
tears along their journey from the tropics, over re- 
gions of slavery and wrong. 

Now the lambent fires of Sirius, and the golden 
orbs of Orion, marshalled onward by the Hyades, 
and Venus, most beautiful of all, are shining in the 
soft evening sky, and rural sounds begin to be heard 
in the plains. Quickly does her eager ear catch the 
pipings of the frogs in the lagunes, — a solitary, timid 
note at first, but soon swelling out into a lusty 
Hallelujah chorus. What mellow thoughts of other 
years revive w^ith the simple melody of the harbin- 
ger Spring-Bird perched upon the picket in the 



SPRING. 37 

fence ! The redbreast whistles in the apple-tree, or 
runs along the ground, stopping now and then to 
perk up his head and take an observation. The 
bluebird warbles among the garden shrubbery just 
bursting into life, and the heart of the aged expands 
under the all-dissolving reign of Spring. 

All sigh and watch for the young coquettish 
Spring, except the prisoner in his solitary cell. 
The pleasant revolution of the seasons is a blank to 
him. The murmur of the running brooks he can- 
not hear, nor see the brisk little tadpoles, overflow- 
ing with the ecstasy of new life just infused into 
them by a vernal sun ; sculling with their one oar 
about the warm muddy pools by the road-side. The 
time for the singing of birds is come, but not to 
him, as the months and years roll by his dungeon, 
unmeasured by the shadow on the dial, or the sands 
dropping in the hour-glass. 

" Seasons return ; but not to him returns 
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, 
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, 
Or flocks, or herds, or face divine of friend: 
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark 
Surroimds him, from the cheerful ways of men 
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair 
Presented with an universal blank 
Of nature's works, to him expunged and ras'd." 

But the freeman, the denizen of the glorious un- 
manacled air, leaps with rapture on the approach of 



38 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

Spring. And why should he not ? Is it nothing 
that Nature then has a resurrection, and comes forth 
from the grave ? Reviving animation returns to her 
shrunken features hke health diffusing itself slowly 
over the pale face of a convalescent. Innumerable 
black or shining insects are creeping forth along the 
sand, or among the starting grass, while birds in 
flocks, or each severally on his own account, are 
" making a note of them," and seriously meditating 
on takinsc some individuals home for dinner. Lux- 
urious repasts have the bright birds in the merry 
Spring-time, and famous appetites for sauce after 
their long, winter Ramadan ! But moderation is a 
maxim, in their feasts of reason and flow of song, 
and they leave intemperance to man. 

As the farmer breaks up the steaming earth with 
his plough, the chivalrous cock, quitting his winter- 
quarters with his numerous household, follows along 
the dark, fat furrows, and helps himself and them 
to the richest vermicelli, — only for the stooping. 
What crops are theirs ! The cottager may bless his 
stars, if his own shall be as good. Does not the 
good-natured, matronly cow, think you, now enjoy 
the yellow sunshine in the barn-yard ? Undoubtedly 
she does, if there is any truth in physiognomy. 
How sleepy is her large, soft, dark-blue eye, as she 
gently chews her quiet cud, — not of tobacco, mind 
you, but comfort and reflection ! What can she 



SPRING. 39 

possibly be dreaming of, I wonder ? I cannot tell. 
Perhaps of the new pasture, where she has spent 
tlie day, with its nice clear spring. Perhaps of — 
nothing at all ; that is, I fancy, the happiest state 
— for a poor beast. 

The Spring, like a true and lovely woman, as she 
is, (though the ancients, I believe, did not decide 
upon her gender,) is mightily pleased with her new 
dress, and cannot refrain from joyously dancing in 
the branches of the budding trees, and along the 
trembling vines. In her exuberant gayety she sum- 
mons to her festival all the tribes of animated be- 
ings to behold her, and minister their praise. Biit 
I will not charge her with being vain. No, indeed. 
It cannot be vanity — can it ? — to be conscious of 
one's real charms ; and who shall deny to the posses- 
sor of beauty the pleasure of admiring, a very little, 
what makes the highest happiness of all others ? It 
is a hard case, truly, when one is not permitted to 
enjoy one's own property. 

And now, sweet Spring, tarry with us as long as 
possible ; for we shall too soon bitterly regret your 
absence, after you are gone ; and, alas ! I know not 
if I may ever see you more. 




ODE. 

As once, upon a summer's day, 

I on a bed of roses lay, 

It chanc'd that Cupid sought the bow'r, 

To point his dart, and sleep an hour. 

Said I, " Who fears your little arrow ? 
I 'm sure, it cannot hurt a sparrow. 
Though you may sting me, like the bee. 
You must again, as well as he, 
Extract the barbed dart away. 
Or harmless be another day." 

With roguish look, and lip of pride, 
The Paphian Boy, displeased, replied : 
" Though time may cure the shallow smart 
Inflicted by the insect-dart;' 
Though, if he let the sting remain, 
He never more can hurt again : 
You well shall know, before we part, 
What 't is for Love to wound the heart, — 
How harmless every dart must be, 
Compar'd with th' arrow shot by me." 



ODE. 



41 



He, rising, waves his spangled wings, 

And round him heavenly fragrance flings ; 

Loud rings his bow, his arrows fly : 

" Oh, cruel Love, I die, I die. 

The fiery shafts of heav'n above 

Must yield to those of conquering Love." 





SPARE THAT BIRD. 




ON'T fire at that little bird, my good fellow. 
He has never done you any harm ; neither 
defrauded you of your property, attacked 
your person, nor spoken a word against your char- 
acter. Why do you wish to take his life, which 
some among mankind believe is never forfeited for 
offences even of the darkest dye ? What ! you 
say, he is a thief. This is a matter to be proved ; 
we are not willing to take the wolf's word against 
the lamb. " He steals the cherries ; he scratches 
up the peas ; he robs us of the corn." These are 
indeed sharp accusations against a co-inheritor of 
the free air and the common, unlimited champaign. 
The bird has never recognized your monopolizing 
doctrines. He supports the bill that supports him 
— the land-limitation bill ; and if the first discov- 
erer of territory has superior claims, he pats in for 
being lord paramount of the greater part of the 
earth, and the sum total of the skies. 

He is a thief, forsooth ! because he takes a bite 
of a cherry, and helps himself and little ones occa- 



SPARE THAT BIRD. 43 

sionally to a dinner of sweet herbs eaten with a 
loving heart, or a dessert of over-ripe fruit, which 
might have rotted and been lost, had he not stept in 
to save it. And for this, and such as this, must the 
delinquent die and his whole race with him, just as 
if they were no better than so many buffaloes or 
Indians ? There is no justice at all in this. Is not 
the bird at once a tenant in common of the farm, 
and an active partner in the cultivation of the fruit 
and grain ? Everybody knows this is the truth. 
He diligently labors in the morning long before his 
human confederate is up, and while the owner of 
the soil in fact is little better than a sleeping part- 
ner. For hours he clambers about the trees, pick- 
ing up a grub here, the egg of a canker-worm there, 
sometimes attacking the caterpillar in his den, 
sometimes cutting off destroying insects, while act- 
ually on a foraging party or marauding expedition 
at the very outposts of the branches. By all this 
perpetual watchfulness and ceaseless industry he 
and the farmer secure a bountiful and luscious crop. 
Shall he be denied a share of the proceeds ? Shall 
he not bring in his bill for his wages ? We tell you 
that whatever the courts below may do about the 
matter, the chancery of the skies will award him 
his righteous dues. These creatures of the Good 
Being shall be fed from the finest of the grain 
which they have watched over, and protected from 



44 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

the devouring enemy, while man has been asleep, or 
else too purblind to have guarded it himself, had he 
been ever so wide awake. 

We take a pride in saying that many legislatures 
have seen this matter in its proper light, and vindi- 
cated the character of their own race by protecting 
that of our feathered friends. It is no more than 
right ; for the inhumanity of man to man takes a 
fearful lesson from inhumanity to bird and beast. 
It is no more than necessary. Ah ! my good fellow, 
you may say what you please about your shooting 
the little bird for the injury he does, or for the food 
which his delicate flesh affords. We know bet- 
ter. You kill him, because you love to do it. You 
have a despot's heart beneath your ribs ; and so 
have most other boys who like to hurt and wound, 
to tyrannize and destroy. 

There is much unreflecting cruelty in the world, 
which injures, not from bad intention, but from the 
want of any mind at all. The butcher is the cause 
of infinite, needless agony in the exercise of his 
necessary and respectable vocation, from mere want 
of thought ; and habit has closed the hearts of 
thousands to practices of great barbarity. But with 
cases such as these, we have nothing now to do. 
We wish to deal with the scores of hard-hearted 
boys who impose on the loving nature of their 
dogs, and habitually treat them harshly. They take 



SPARE THAT BIRD. 45 

pleasure in teaching them knowing tricks, each of 
which they imprint indelibly on the poor dumb 
beast by painful stripes. We want to rap the 
knuckles of hundreds who love to tear the limbs 
of insects and small animals, not for the love of 
science, but that of witnessing their sufferings. We 
want to rebuke the wretches who stun frocks with 
stones to see them quiver, put butterflies on the 
rack to admire their colors, and maim the fly and 
beetle to find out what extremity of pain tliey can 
endure and live. 

We should despair of bringing up a boy to be 
careful of the feelings of a man, if he spent his 
youth in the indulgence of wanton cruelty to his 
doo; that shares his dinner ; the insect crawlino; in 
his path ; the horse, the profitable slave of man ; 
the patient ox ; and especially the gladsome choris- 
ters of the fields. In gratifying your appetite for 
torturing and killing, don't imagine for a moment, 
you persecutors of little birds, that you have any 
better apology to allege than the single one that 
you like to kill, because it is good sport. That is 
all. You shoot a sino;ino;-bird for the same reason 
that you pester and hector a boy that is weaker 
than yourself. It is an amusement. You know 
the bird is an innocent creature, a delightful orna- 
ment, a charm to the country, an inestimable acces- 
sory to man in protecting his property from the 
ravages of vermin, by which he more than earns 



46 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

his daily bread. Yet you persist in knocking liim 
down, and robbing his nest, with no more remorse 
than if he were a viper or an oyster. We see how 
it is : you must have something to plague, and vex, 
and make uncomfortable. We recognize that feat- 
ure in your nature, and now propose to cater for, 
and gratify it, on condition that you spare that 
bird and the tree among whose branches he dis- 
courses to us such beautiful music, all gratuitously. 
We hereby abandon to you — though not to tor- 
ture, mind, but only murder — the various tribes 
of noxious insects, beasts, and birds of prey. You 
shall have the sea-serpent and the rhinoceros to 
sport with. Do what you please, so that you do it 
quickly, with the rattlesnake and skunk. The 
squash-bug, the caterpillar, and canker-worm shall 
be yours to crush between your thumb and finger ; 
and we will even find no fault if you exterminate 
the moth, the bed-bug, cockroach, and mosquito. 
If a range like this has not room and verge enough 
for your diversion, when you grow up, we may per- 
haps give you the enemies of your country to hunt 
and shoot at ; but, at present, we beseech you, 
spare that sweet little singing-bird now w^arbling in 
the tree-top ; for he has a mate not far away, and a 
family of little ones in a nest close by ; and he is 
expected every moment to return to them, and drop 
a crumb of something into their waiting mouths 
wide open to receive it. 




INFLUENCE OF PLACE ON CHARACTER. 

ID you ever notice, in the course of your 
travels, how people change in coming from 
the country to the city only in the course 
of a single day? It was more observable in the 
times when stage-coaches were the vehicles for 
travellers than now. Starting on a beautiful serene 
morning from the quiet, cosy, country village, 
where it had been calling round from house to 
house for passengers, every inmate of the coach felt 
introduced to one another by the simple circum- 
stance of such accidental position ; or from belong- 
ing to the same vicinity, or town, at least for the 
time. On these easy and companionable terms they 
jogged along from town to town, occasionally tak- 
ing in a passenger, and then again letting one out ; 
but still keeping the number good as the principal 
ones continued in company, for they were going to 
the great city. 

But when they arrived within a dozen miles or so 
of the metropolis, a new face began gradually to 
creep over the company, or rather a new expression 
over their faces. Till then, no difference was per- 



48 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

ceptible between the city and the country-bred. 
All were equal and sympathetic. Now they si- 
lently lay aside by degrees their sweet, natural 
companionship, and resume the old conventional 
bado;es of distinction, which had been forgotten 
among the mountains. The hard and disagreeable 
characteristics of social castes begin to darken ; and 
the late chatting, charming party, which set out 
together in the morning, and made each other 
happy throughout the day, has dissolved and dis- 
appeared like the morning dew, and other very dif- 
ferent actors have taken their places. It is a shock- 
ing metamorphosis to those who experience it for 
the first time. But it is so common to many now, 
such as visitors to watering-places and the like, that 
they soon cease to mind it. The effect vA\\q\\ place 
has on persons brings to mind a homely compari- 
son ; and as it really resembles the operation that 
rennet has on milk, souring, and resolving it into 
substances of very unlike qualities and appearance, 
we see no reason why the likeness, though vulgar, 
shall not be noticed. 

This deterioration of character in persons ap- 
proaching the city from rural scenes of more equal 
and sociable intercourse has in some respects a par- 
allel in the mountain stream. Issuing from lofty 
recesses, the water at first is delightfully soft and 
pure. Soon it becomes a river from little tributary 



INFLUENCE OF PLACE ON CHARACTER. 49 

accretions along its banks, continuing to be marked 
by the same qualities, till it nears the ocean. Then 
it gradually acquires the impurities of a dense pop- 
ulation, and the hard brackish character of the 
mighty reservoir of waters, and at last mingles with 
its waves, and loses its sweetness and softness for- 
ever. 





TO KAAON — THE BEAUTIFUL. 

O Love ! O ever-gushing fountain ! 

I see thee in the radiant bow ; 
The champaign, cataract, and mountain 

In thy celestial essence glow. 
Spirit of Beauty ! thou hast given 
Their lustre to the earth and heaven. 

Without thy subtle power, 
The breathing canvas, statue, frieze, 
Instinct with elements to please, 

Would please no more. 

Yet, not for this, would I adore thee ; — 

The viewless realm of mind is thine ; 
The good, the beautiful in story, 

In patriot, martyr, glorious shine. 
Eternal, amaranthine splendors 
Surround their country's true defenders ; 

The faithful and the just 
Shall bourgeon in perpetual youth 
When everything is dead but truth, 

And turned to dust. 



TO KXAOTi— THE BEAUTIFUL. 51 

In woman both of these are blending, — 

The matchless shape, the seraph soul; 
With sweetest harmony contending 

To make a lovely, perfect whole. 
A double beauty thus combining, 
Woman and angel intertwining, 

Earth-born, yet from above ; 
'Tis here The Beautiful we find, 
The fair in form, the pure in mind. 

Commanding love. 






THE LOOKER-ON. 

HE love of standing still and seeing other 
people work is developed early. It is at 
first apparently as insignificant as it is sim- 
ple ; but, like all the laws of Nature, turns out, on 
nice investigation, to be the cause of much of what 
we do, as well as a large proportion of all we suffer. 
To climb into a position where one can overlook 
the labors of his fellow-creatures, toiling and sweat- 
ing along life's thoroughfares, while he is himself far 
above the dust of the crowd, is one of the strong 
motive-powers for striving to be rich. For to be 
rich without poor people to look down upon, would 
not give anybody pleasure. How many would be 
content to ride imprisoned in a pine box pulled along 
by horses on a laughing day in Spring, instead of 
bathing all over in the open air, and feeling the ex- 
quisite thrill of locomotion in the sweet sunshine, 
were there no pedestrians to compare themselves 
with, as they rolled along ? A child is the best phi- 
losopher in this department of natural science ; let 
him answer. This principle is pleasure-giving, but 



THE LOOKER-ON. 53 

not productive; fitting one to receive impressions, 
not to make them. And it is remarkable that all 
of us have five organs for the former, to one onh- 
for the latter office. If some shall choose to con- 
tend that the tongue is an overmatch for all the five 
senses put together, we will not stop now to debate 
the point. 

We have sometimes thought that to this source 
was to be attributed the delight of gazing on the 
moving of the silver-edged billowy cloud, the rolling 
sea, the dashing cataract. All these are ministers 
of exquisite enjoyment to the spectator, as at his 
leisure he overlooks Nature thus at her work. 
These and other objects of a similar kind do not 
consequently please equally well in painting ; for 
the process of labor is not visible there. Instead of 
her actual operations, there is indeed the work of 
the artist, but it is already done. We prefer to see 
Nature, or somebody as her substitute, actually at 
her easel of creation. Many go to view a mountain, 
or a river now ; but what a concourse would be 
present on notice given that either of them on a 
certain hour was to be thrown up, or poured down, 
before us, on the level prairie, or rocky ravine ! 

That the early Spring possesses a charm superior 
to all other seasons of the year is owing probably 
to some such metaphysics as that we have alluded 
to. Man is admitted then to Nature's Avorkshop. 



54 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

The world is not Indeed about to be created ab- 
solutely out of nothing. That grand drama in six 
acts undoubtedly is over, though some philosophers 
in Massachusetts, we believe, are of opinion it is 3^et 
performing. But even these adepts will probably 
admit that the process is kept secret from all but 
very scientific eyes. To the common mass of us in 
this quarter, creation may be deemed as perfectly 
finished, unless we are ourselves able to catch Nature 
at some odd time in the actual manufacture of a 
fern, or fish. But to this drama of creation there 
is added every year a kind of after-piece of not 
quite so original but still delightful materials — the 
renovation of the natural world. At the moment 
we are writing, for example, one has only to look 
abroad in order to behold the most wonderful of 
spectacles, the miracle of the year, the resurrection 
of Nature from her annual sleep. The snow-drop, 
crocus, hyacinth, or some yet more tiny plant, wakes 
first, and utters a trill so soft and high as to be in- 
audible to mortal sense. But by and by the willow, 
the oak, and the whole vegetable kingdom arouse, 
and, aided by myriads of insect and animal voices, 
begin a chorus which is soon to run in successive 
fugues along the parallels from the Equator to the 
Pole. 

Here is a real feast for man. He takes his seat in 
the boxes or parquet of this great natural amphi- 



THE LOOKER-ON. 55 

theatre, overhears all, overlooks all, and does nothing. 
One tree is bursting its buds, another is getting 
into flower as fast as possible ; every blade of grass 
is growing green and growing tall with all its might, 
both day and night, — for Nature, after so long a nap, 
now, like Macbeth, sleeps no more, — every little 
creature that has a voice is practising and rehears- 
ing to be ready for the universal oratorio or opera, 
which is soon to burst upon the ears of the universe, 
whether they have tickets or not, in gratuitous 
profusion, without regard to position, property, or 
power ; — those indeed who have the least of these, 
and such as these, will probably get most music. 

While the whole wide-spread creation is in this 
paroxysm of labor, we have forgotten man, the lord 
of all. He of course is the master of the cere- 
monies, the leader, the conductor of the whole. If 
we have forgotten that gentleman, he has by no 
means forgotten himself on this occasion, any more 
than on others. He rubs his hands ; he rubs his 
eyes ; the sight evidently affects him. But he does 
not lead the orchestra of jubilant thanksgiving. He 
has a previous engagement in Tripler Hall, the 
Opera House, or the World's Fair. He never sings 
except to tickets. The Nightingale — (the real, 
not the mock-bird, we mean) — may perform gra- 
tuitously, if she pleases ; but not he. And what 
does he do to celebrate this resurrection of a world ? 



5Q AUTUMN LEAVES. 

Nothing. The lazy creature loves to feel, accept, 
receive, to be obliged. It is his happiness to over- 
see ; so he watches the young apples and peaches 
growing. He admires to see them turning red, and 
when they are tired of ripening and fall to the 
ground, he picks them up and eats them. He re- 
joices also to see the sheep and oxen as they labor, 
and particularly as they are grazing in the rich 
pastures and waxing fat. He exerts himself so far 
even as to make a particular noise with his lips 
when he anticipates the time that they shall pay for 
their good living by becoming so to him. 

Next to the pleasure of overlooking people when 
they are actually at work, is that of examining their 
work after it is executed. The charm of the Lon- 
don Fair probably consists in this. It will be much 
less than the enjoyment which the curious looker-on 
would have had in watching the various processes 
which brought about such astonishing results of art, 
as some of them will doubtless be ; but it is better 
than nothing. The spectator may put his hands 
within his pockets, while he is gazing at the con- 
tents of the Crystal Palace, and imagine he is look- 
ing on a host of black-faced, tough-handed mechan- 
ics, hammering, punching, shaving, and blowing and 
straining to his utmost satisfaction. It is the truth ; 
his fancy has not deceived him, and he has a right 
to enjoy the picture. 



THE LOOKER-ON. 57 

This principle of our excellent human nature 
accounts, as we suppose, for the legion of commen- 
tators every day increasing, that are found sticking, 
like aphides on a rose-bush, to the works of famous 
men, of Shakspeare, Goethe, Raphael, and the rest. 
With such a load of barnacles adhering to their 
bottoms, we should once have feared that with such 
men as we have mentioned, the Homers, Virgils, and 
Phidiases of antiquity would never have been able 
to sail down the stream of time to the present gen- 
eration. But experience has proved the contrary, 
and we beheve now, notwithstanding the comments 
and praises of the critics, that the works of these 
celebrated persons will float some time longer yet. 
In the mean time, the myriads of industrious, pains- 
taking scholiasts, who have feasted on the choice 
fruits of other men's brains, have felt a happiness 
for which they doubtless were peculiarly organized. 
Some animals are formed to feed on one another, 
and some on substances not quite so distinctly 
appropriated. Notwithstanding such unfavorable 
appearances, they are doubtless both equally well 
employed in their different vocations. 

We would not for a moment call in question the 
right of any one to admire to the utmost superlative 
of extravagance the works of his favorite author, 
painter, or musician. But we have sometimes 
wished, we must acknowledge, that he had kept a 



58 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

portion of it to himself. When such an individual 
finds he is accumulating a critical stock beyond the 
demand of his own consumption, of course he fa- 
vors the public with the balance ; there seems to be 
no help for it. The strength of the propensity to 
be nothing but a witness in the perpetual trials of 
life, or, what is much the same, of feeding upon 
others' earnings, will forever render the spectator 
tribe out of all proportion to the productive, as 
horse-flies must always be more numerous than 
horses. Some of the speculations of these para- 
sitical observers are like green fruit, neither fit for 
one's own use, nor the market. Such are the dis- 
quisitions of certain persons upon Art. According 
to their theory, a man is nothing but a laborer or 
mechanic when he executes a beneficial work ; to 
be an artist, he must be useless. Art, like the Egyp- 
tian emblem of eternity, — the extremity -joined 
circular serpent, — ends in itself, and has no other 
end, or aim, or purpose. It teaches nothing, aspires 
to nothing, above or beyond itself, and worships 
nothing but the ideal, now corrupted to mean idol. 
A moral intention debases the picture or the statue, 
as a work of art, and nothing of truth is tolerated 
but its nakedness ; its principle being inconsistent 
with high excellence. He who performs a work for 
a livelihood or pay is a laborer or mechanic ; to be 
a gentleman he must live without work, or work 
without reward. 



THE LOOKER-ON. 59 

These sentiments, though bad enough, and shock- 
ing to the right-principled soul, are not more dis- 
gusting to the taste than the cool pretension of that 
growing class who periodically gabble about music. 
Beethoven and the Germans are their pecuhar 
province ; yet they exercise a jurisdiction over the 
whole domain of the art. If they are to be credited, 
music is a universal language, expressing ideas, as 
well as emotions. They can clearly see what the 
composers could not do themselves, — a drama in 
an overture of Mozart, and an epic poem in a sym- 
phony of Beethoven. Even the initiated differ very 
materially in their translations from the score, and 
to everybody else the whole is little better than 
heathen Greek. 

The man who plays the part of spectator, or 
auditor, through life, contracts a comfortable opin- 
ion of his own capacity and powers. Did anybody 
ever observe a potter moulding with his hands the 
rotating clay into an earthen jug ? The looker-on 
thinks it very easy, and is certain he can do the 
same. A trial would undeceive him, and destroy 
his vanity ; of that, however, our friend is in no 
danger ; so he continues to look, and to look, to 
the end of his pilgrimage, congratulating himself 
abundantly all the while upon his power to paint, 
and preach, and write, as others do, if he should 
only make the attempt. Poor man ! he sometimes 



60 



AUTUMN LEAVES. 



fancies he plays the game which he only overlooks, 
and if he ever has the luck to detect a false move, 
a defective measure, or an imperfection in a draw- 
ing, it is a capital for him to put on interest for the 
remainder of his life. The world hears it forever 
to his last day, and to our fortunate critic the recol- 
lection of it always comes with all the freshness of 
the first achievement. 




THE SONNET. 



Is aught on earth so beautiful to see 

As a young mother and her rosy child ? 
She fondles it, she trots it on her knee, 

And almost smothers it with kisses wild. 
Oh, yes ! It is that mother when she smiled 

At some sweet thought that none had thought before ; 

Some child of genius, which her fancy bore 
To show conflicting beauties reconciled. 

She sits, caressing o'er and o'er again 

This tender offspring of her teeming brain ; 
The baby-stranger with the daintiest taste 

She dresses, teaches him to warble, yet 
In fettered numbers exquisitely graced, 

So makes her son at last a rare sonnet. 




NOVEMBER. 



November ! last of mellow Autumn's train, 
The world, enervate with the balmy air 
And soft caresses of thy sisters fair, 

Call thine a gloomy, melancholy reign. 
But come, ye sland'rers, to the sunny plain, 

And see the butterfly o'er fern and flower 
Pursue his yellow mate with effort vain, 

While th' Indian Summer pours a golden show'r. 
But ah ! the vision changes as I write ! 

The ragged clouds in black procession rise, 
They quench the hazy sun in sudden night, 

And Winter sternly rules the iron skies. 

Thou canst, like man, assume a pleasant face, 
In both 'tis often nothing but grimace. 





THE WAY TO ENJOY THE COUNTRY. 

OW much are those mistaken creatures to 
be pitied, who suppose the country is, or 
ought to be, just Uke the city, only having 
a purer and cooler air. In the last they are miser- 
ably disappointed ; and, if the heat were all that 
makes the crowded town uncomfortable in the dog- 
days, going into the country would be a miserable 
blunder. 

But the breezes are purer ; granted. And is that 
all ? By no means. Yet it is all to many, perhaps 
a majority of citizens. It is all the change they 
wish or feel. Everything beside must be precisely 
like the city, — dress, style of living, parlor-manners, 
etiquettes, and employment of time. Truly, the 
change of earth and skies avails but little, if the old 
routine is to be preserved. But a change of habits 
and tastes will be found upon experiment to be 
much more difficult, as well as important, than any 
and every other. Horses, steamboats, and cars can 
in a few hours bring about the one ; the other will 
take time and a course of lessons, and then perhaps 
fail of success. 



64 A UTUMN LEA VES. 

For just consider the contrast between the city 
and the country, — one so full of excitement, the 
other so placid and quiet. One absolutely forces 
occupation and amusement upon you, the other 
leaves you to yourself; you must make your own 
entertainment, or go without it. To extract — we 
do not say the peculiar pleasures of rural life — but 
any pleasure at all, one is to wander about, not upon 
flag-stones, but over fields of bushes or grass, now 
scratched by the thorn, or entangled in the meshes 
of the blackberiy-vine ; sometimes feeling the cool 
water of deceptive places in the meadow gently 
running over the tops of his shoes. In the country, 
we lie lazily, dreamily, under the darting and dodg- 
ing lights and shadows of a big chestnut-tree, not 
reading poetry, like a sickly sentimentalist in town, 
but listening to the poet's original inspirers, — the 
cat-bird singing in the thicket, the thrush upon the 
maple, trying to rival the mocking-bird, not without 
some success. Hear the honest robin — a bit of a 
thief we confess, when cherries are ripe — warbling 
his cheerful song, or startling one with his loud note 
of surprise or alarm. 

But if any of you have a taste for articulate mu- 
sic, measured by graceful motion, you will never 
cease to take delight in the company of the plump 
black and white bobolink, whose rich notes gush out 
at the moment of his taking wing. We see him 



THE WAY TO ENJOY THE COUNTRY. 65 

now (in the mind's eye) hovering over the sweet 
red clover with his curved bat-like wings, singing 
all the while he is gradually descending to light 
upon the top of the fragile spire of grass, which, of 
course, sinks beneath his weight, and lets him down 
to the ground, where he finds his lady ; if not, why 
then some ladj-hug^ which will do as well, his appe- 
tite being prepared for either fortune. 

But it is not all half-shut-eyed indolence in the 
country, reposing beneath mighty oaks and chest- 
nuts, watching the motions of their great outspread 
arms, and listening to the whistling of the winds 
that causes them. It is delicious, we grant, to hear 
these, and see the dancing lights and shades around, 
and the fleets of sailing clouds above, bearing all 
sorts of pennons, while the mower is swinging his 
scythe in the meadow below, or on the hill-side op- 
posite, with as much grace and rhythm as Jullien 
does his baton. Ah ! there is music in harmonious 
labor, as well as in the operas (worhs^ of Rossini ! 
There is utility too in both, though one is immedi- 
ately productive, the other not. We acknowledge 
it here in the midst of the ploughmen and cultiva- 
tors, sons of the sickle and the scythe. 

Rural enjoyments are not all thus somnolent, 

passive, and sensuous. Do you hear that brook, 

now quiet, now brawling? It is denominated a 

trout-stream, and the noise heard is said to be a 

5 



66 A UTUMN LEA VES. 

conversation between that shy creature and his 
neighbor, the Naiad. You have seen the elegant 
fishing-tackle, which nothing that has fins, it would 
seem, could ever escape ? Well, that is made for 
this very rivulet. It was invented for this very 
trout-brook. Now throw it in, and troll and travel, 
troll and travel, hour after hour. Have you caught 
anything in all that weary tramp ? " Why, no, noth- 
ing but happiness and health ; I have been expect- 
ing every minute to lay the glittering prize upon the 
green bank, but have not had a bite as yet — per- 
haps I shall." 

It has frequently been mooted, whether fishing 
for amusement is right — is it Christian ? There is 
no difiiculty in replying. It is perfectly moral, in 
our opinion, for every city-gentleman to buy fishing- 
tackle of great price and murderous look, and use it 
also with all his skill, in as many trout-streams as 
he pleases. From our own experience in such mat- 
ters we are willing to say, " the blood of all the 
trout, which they may catch, be upon us and on 
our children ! " We will be responsible for all 
the misery they will cause the fish. But, though 
the pretty tenants of the water may be missed, the 
mark the sportsman aimed at has been hit. He 
may carry home no exquisitely sweet trout for 
breakfast, yet he will thus have a keener relish for 
his codfish-balls and mutton-chop. 



THE WAY TO ENJOY THE COUNTRY. 67 

The piscatory game, at which, as in most others, 
very little is to be won but by adepts, yields nothing 
directly to the player, at least nothing he expected, 
but a great deal that he did not ; this pastime is not 
the only one in the power of visitants from the town. 
There is fowling, facetiously called sporting, — lucus 
a non lueendo, — sporting, because there is not a bit 
of fun in it. Here the question again arises. Is it 
morally lawful to kill birds ? First, be our choicest 
anathemas on all destroyers of singing-birds. Sec- 
ondly, on all others of the feathered tribe not in- 
tended for consumption. We have a right to 
live on them, if we can catch them, because they 
themselves subsist on all the insects they can get. 
But the point is quite a useless one to make, so 
far as concerns our city-gentlemen who purchase 
their first-rate fowling-pieces of the crack vender. 
Friends ! you need not be so particular about your 
powder. Take our word for it, almost any sort will 
answer. Twenty to one, you will never have a 
chance to burn it unless in blazing away at a swal- 
low, which is villainous, or a tom-cat, which is patri- 
otic, — no, not even at a sham representation of 
Princeton battle. 

Only reflect what a sportsman has to go through. 
Through rivers up to his hat in water, — through 
swamps over his boots in mud, — creeping on his 
belly without either hat or boots, pushing his gun 



68 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

before him, — all this, too, for a single bird weigh- 
ing four ounces, and half that when drest ! Is it 
not delightful ? Do you suppose now, that a city- 
gentleman with white pants glistening with the re- 
cent iron, Parisian boots and gloves, indescribable 
coat, waistcoat, and nethers, is going through this 
purgatory to fit him for the joys of participating in 
the paradise of a dish of woodcock and snipe, 
weighing two ounces with their insides, all told? 
No, no ! he will do all that may become a man, — 
gentleman, we mean, — anything more is nought. 

So far as these citizens are concerned, no harm to 
the beautiful people need be apprehended ; their 
lives may be insured for a small premium at any of 
the offices. But for those whelps who go about 
shooting-sparrows, wrens, and such like, together 
with singing-birds, — creatures who would willingly 
associate, assist, and please man, if not driven away 
by fraud and violence, — we heartily wish, when 
they go upon such expeditions, that they may jointly 
and severally carry with them a gun of that kind 
spoken of by " Hudibras," which kicked its owner 
over. 



PARALLEL BETWEEN A MOSQUITO AND A 
FLY. 

AFTER THE MANNER OF PLUTARCH. 



FLY is a small insect, but a mosquito is 
much smaller. The former has a short 
bill, the latter one almost equal to that of a 
woodcock. When we consider the use each makes 
of this weapon of his, or, more properly, tool for 
getting a living with, the diversity is still more 
marked, for the fly labors and procures his liveli- 
hood in the daytime ; and \vhen night comes on, 
however hungry he may be and keen his appetite, 
he calmly goes to rest with his tail uppermost, when 
his stomach is empty, just as we turn a tumbler up- 
side-down when there is nothing in it. Or he may 
assume this posture in order that the humors of the 
body may settle into the head and produce a kind 
of lethargy and repose, as we take spirits that they 
may ascend into our brains and make them com- 
fortable. The fly is more nimble in attack, and so 
marches up boldly in the daytime ; while the mos- 
quito, not so secure of effecting a safe retreat, takes 



70 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

care to assault under cover of darkness. But we are 
far from inferring, therefore, that the former pos- 
sesses a greater degree of courage. We don't beheve 
that either of them have the folly of men to venture 
where they know that certain death awaits them. 

Some have argued that the mosquito is the braver 
of the two, because he generously gives premonitory 
notice by his music. We believe in this chivalry 
of his just as much as we do in the rattlesnake 
who shakes his tail before a spring, to give fair 
warning, or in the gallantry of a burglar, who 
makes a noise in breaking through a window. The 
fact is, neither of them can help it. They would 
conceal their designs by approaching silently, like a 
cat, if they were able. But, fortunately, Nature 
has invented what we call noise, for the general 
safety, though it turns out to be rather annoying in 
particular cases. Thus Nature in this instance, as 
in thousands of others, is very conservative, and 
careful for the comfort and preservation of her 
creatures. 

As in the case of princes, the reign of the person- 
aces we are comparing is of divers lengths of dura- 
tion. In this the fly has a manifest advantage. It 
begins earlier and continues later. He has, beside, 
the advantage, as Dr. Franklin discovered, of an 
exemption from death by drowning ; for, on being 
dried after a thorough water-soaking, he starts up 



FLIES AND MOSQUITOES. 71 

as brisk as ever. We say nothing of their relative 
happiness on that account : there are insects whose 
lives are conjectured not to last beyond an hour, and 
even less. And yet it may be imagined they are as 
happy as they can be. If one's capacity for enjoy- 
ment is quite satisfied, he is full. What would you 
have more ? The trouble with mankind is, their 
capacity for felicity is so very large that it takes an 
immense amount of happiness to fill it ; the conse- 
quence is that few get anything like as much as 
they can hold, and want. 

For these considerations, we will not distress our- 
selves about the happiness of flies and mosquitoes. 
They do very well, we dare say, in that respect ; 
quite as well as some of those whose juices they 
are enjoying. There is a marked difference, how- 
ever, in the reputation of the two. Flies, though 
much more numerous in our dwellings, are never- 
theless much less unpopular, and treated with far 
more lenity. What Uncle Toby ever took a mos- 
quito between his thumb and finger, and let him go 
with a whole skin again ? Not only so, but, more 
especially, what good-natured fellow ever made a 
speech to him on performing such a benevolent act, 
in the words of that gentleman, which we do not 
literally remember, but were to this effect, as he 
tossed him gently out of the window, " Go, poor 
wretch ; the world is wide enough for thee and me." 



72 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

This difference in public estimation is np doubt 
due to the different style of their housekeeping. 
The fly lives on almost everything upon the table, 
or off it. He dives into this pot and cup and 
that, and buries himself in sugar or molasses. We 
only brush him away ; that 's all. He is feeding 
just like ourselves, and loves the same things. But 
the mosquito is a carnivorous bird of prey ; he 
scents blood, and our blood too, in particular. If 
he would sit down to table with us, as the genial 
fly does, and partake of things there as they are go- 
ing, Hke a gentleman, he might enjoy himself up to 
the eyes, with now and then a gentle remonstrance, 
if he should bring too many friends to dine with 
him. But he is not satisfied with this. The Shy- 
lock demands our flesh and blood for his gratifica- 
tion, and is not content with what is set before him. 
Flesh and blood won't bear tliis. This is his of- 
fence ; and for this truculent and sanguinary temper 
and practice capital punishment is awarded him; 
and all proclaim it just. 

Men are not their only enemies. The spider 
spreads his net to ensnare them; but though he 
seems to do very little else than wait for them, and 
other small game, he does not on the whole, as it 
appears, do a very large business in catching flies or 
mosquitoes. The latter are indeed a dry morsel 
enough, and unless recently gorged with blood, must 



FLIES AND MOSQUITOES. 73 

be hardly worth the notice and picking of so intel- 
ligent a creature as the spider ; for a mosquito is lit- 
tle better than a skeleton, or sculpin. On the other 
hand, a fly is a portly fellow, and offers more tempt- 
ing refreshment to the fasting gentleman in black, 
who lives not to work, but to eat and grow fat. 
After all, though the natural enemy of the two, the 
spider does the race very little harm. It is the frost 
that 

" Cuts doAvn all, 
Both great and small," 

among the insect tribes. 

On the whole, we consider the mosquito the high- 
est and fastest liver ; but, as often happens in such 
cases, not the happiest individual. He suifers from 
intemperance. Their genius is about alike ; but, 
as to habits, the fly is to be preferred for his more 
social disposition, and his early retirement to bed,- 
while his rival is cruising about o' nights in bed- 
chambers and elsewhere. As to personal appear- 
ance, the fly has the advantage, being plump and 
comely, whereas the mosquito is gaunt, and has 
a hungry, hawkish, sinister look. The latter excels 
in voice, the other in quickness of parts. One sees 
best in the daytime, the other in the night. The 
fly is a fine convivial companion at all our meals, 
and sticks to one sometimes like a burr, or a dog. 
In their sense of smell also, which is remarkable, 
they both resemble that animal not a little. 





BABIES. 

AB Y has fallen down stairs. Very natural. 

Of course every baby falls down stairs once. 

That is not the worst of it. As it grows 
up, it does most of the other tricks its parents did 
when they were young, notwithstanding all their 
wise saws now to the contrary. Can you convince a 
boy that a cigar is a nasty weed, or wine and brandy 
poisons, till he has tried and found them so, as you 
did ? What is the use of preaching to Miss not to 
pinch her waist or appetite, till she has found out by 
ill health the folly of the practice, and that it is a 
real suicide. 

Baby must have its dolls and drums and trumpets ; 
and, when grown older, will insist on more of the 
same sort of toys, though at a more extravagant cost. 
Can you prevent it ? See if you can prevent baby's 
tumbling down stairs, or bumping its head against 
the table, or bruising its nose sometimes, or getting 
into hot water at other times ! You cannot do it. 
Your grandfather and grandmother both did the 
same, and so did you. What is to be done then ? 



BABIES. 75 

Experience must be bought with a price, no less 
than that of bloody noses and black and blue spots. 
It is the law of expansion and growth. The experi- 
ence of another is naught. Each for himself must 
try all things, and hold fast that which is good. 
You might as well expect to thrive by getting 
another to eat your dinner for you, as to hire him to 
go through experiences for you. Baby grows taller 
through the several divisions of inches on Gunter's, 
just as you did ; and also grows wiser by making 
the same experiments of life, of pleasure, and of 
pain. 

Did you ever mind how the old trick of pluck- 
ing forbidden fruit, learnt in the world's infancy, is 
universally prevalent with children now ? They 
seem to love to put their little hands upon things on 
purpose to have you say. Ah ! ah ! ah I When 
they have, by pretending to seize something, forced 
from you a refusal, they are quite satisfied, for their 
object is attained. There is abundance of fun and 
humor in them. The spirit of adventure, romance, 
and drollery appears early. In fact, we very soon 
see in them the embryo of all they will be. They 
discover bravery by venturing to the verge, self- 
sufficiency by assuming the exclusive control of 
playthings, perseverance by insisting on what they 
have once made up their minds to have, and the 
like. 



76 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

And yet the child is the slave of imitation. 
Take care, then, what temper and manners you ex- 
hibit in their presence ; for, be assured that an 
orange is not more certain to impart its flavor to 
what is brouo;ht into contact ^vith it than children 
are to take their character from associates. In 
this respect we perpetuate ourselves in our chil- 
dren, who may be said to resemble those modem 
towns which are built from the materials of ancient 
cities. 





A PASSAGE OF LIFE. 

At church, upon the Sabbath-day, 
In the next pew but one, 
A lady sat alone. 

She neither serious seemed, nor gay ; 
I hope it was not wrong to turn my eyes that way. 

Her modesty took no alarm, 

As if a glance at her 

Meant aught particular ; 

Her beautiful form sustained no harm, 

More than a rose would do in scattering round its balm. 

Along the range of gardens near 

I marked a feeble light, 

That shone through all the night. 

And went not out, till daylight clear 

Its modest, trembling lustre caused to disappear. 

Each night I watched that glimmering flame ; 

More constant than the stars. 

That in their silver cars 

Roll nightly round th' ethereal frame. 

This little light, through all the hours, shone still the same. 



78 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

One night I missed its timid beam; 

The stars shone as before, • 

But to my gaze no more 

Appeared that solitary gleam, 

Which vanished like the baseless fabric of a dream. 

An interval had passed. Again 

I occupied the place 

Where first that lovely face 

Diffused delight without a stain ; 

But she was veiled in sorrow's black funereal train. 

What anguish in that bosom lay ! 

What visions of her breast, 

In radiant colors drest, 

Before that taper passed away, 

While I with careless speculation watched its ray ! 




NO SABBATH FOR THEM. 




HE Holy Sabbath-— the quiet Sabbath- 
day of repose and serene meditation to the 
tired body, to the weary soul ! A benedic- 
tion art thou to thousands who are grateful for thy 
sweet return and gracious gifts, and to thousands 
on thousands more who are not conscious of, or do 
not acknowledge, the irredeemable debt they owe 
thee ! One day in seven, snatched from labor, 
anxiety, and racking cares ! One day of contem- 
plation, turned upward from earth to heaven, from 
the world of friends we are leaving, or who are 
leaving us, to that which is to be our home, to the 
friendships never to be dissolved any more forever. 
What a statute that would be, which enacted that 
every seventh day should be devoted to rest, sacred 
to calm reflection, to happy thoughts ! It is beyond 
the power of human legislatures to pass so benefi- 
cent and sublime a law, — to inaugurate an observ- 
ance prefiguring not the exceptional but the uniform 
state of the blessed hereafter, when time will be 
absorbed in one eternal Sabbath of the soul. Of 



80 A UTUMN LEA VES. 

this we have but a poor foretaste now, adulterate 
in kind and restricted in duration, but, such as it 
is, its felicity is yet denied to millions of our race. 

The PHYSICIAN knows no Sabbath. Sickness 
will not wait for work-days. Only in the Sabbath 
of the future world will there be no sickness, nei- 
ther sighing nor weeping. The purest here are not 
exempt from natural ills, from accident, calamity, 
and death. The physician therefore, the select war- 
rior of mankind against disease, stands sentry every 
hour of the day, every day of the week alike, and 
must be ready for defence wlienever the enemy, 
who is no respecter of times and persons, shall 
come by day or in the silent watches of the night. 
He must be ever in armor to go forth and do battle 
with " the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and 
the devastation that wasteth at noonday." 

The MOTHER knows no Sabbath. Her infant 
may sleep, but her own eyelids must not close, or 
only as the JEolian harp smiles into rest to reawaken 
instantly when the next plaintive breath of air 
sweeps over its sensitive chords. All days must be 
alike to her, — in work and watchful care. Only 
in the hidden recesses of her pious heart can she 
feel the deep satisfaction of the Seventh Day. The 
distant church-bell may vibrate on her ear ; perhaps 
her heart may catch some notes of a neighboring 
organ, vocal with the Creator's praise. But not for 



NO SABBATH FOR THEM. 81 

her, who most needs them, are the soothing consola- 
tions, the sweet inspirations of the Sabbath-day. 
She must sit sohtary in her chamber, or over- 
whelmed with maternal solicitudes without number. 
At one time her infant demands what no other than 
she can give. At another, a young and wayward 
child, though it may possibly dispense with a moth- 
er's hand, yet what mother will withdraw it, when- 
ever it promises to be of the smallest service ? — 
Now a child is sick, then one is suffering from 
an accident, needs correction, or cannot be left with 
another. In short, a mother, like Nature herself, 
"works always," is never at rest. Children, sick or 
well, are her delight ; they are also her frequent 
vexation. If she plays, ever, it is with her chil- 
dren. If these are the family satellites, domestic 
astronomy differs widely from the celestial in this, 
for in the astronomy of the household, parents, and 
the large or primary bodies in general, revolve 
around the secondaries, or children ; and if there 
happens to be a babe in the house, he is the very 
centre of attraction — the primum mobile of the 
whole system. 

What then must be a mother's life, how importu- 
nate and engros^ng her indispensable obligations, to 
keep in repair and healthy motion so complex and 
delicate a machine as a family of young children ? 
How a care-taking mother ever survives, we wonder 



82 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

much. Affection must be the great sanitary agent ; 
there is no other to account for the phenomenon. 
Without this panacea she could not outhve her 
sleepless nights, her unceasing agitations, petty so- 
licitudes, and consuming fears. All these and more 
are hers to endure, and this too with scarcely a holi- 
day to recruit her jaded body, or even a Sabbath 
to reinspire her soul pressed down to earth by a 
heavy bond of sometimes great and sometimes small 
anxieties, but always unremitting, never ending, 
though constantly beginning. 





EXAGGERATION IN CONVEESATION. 




XAGGERATION may be a vice in some 
other nations, for aught we know, but we 
are sure it is the besetting: sin of our own. 
" The house was crammed to the ceihng," we hear 
it reported, when the vacant seats would hold as 
many more. " The procession consisted of ten 
thousand well - dressed, respectable people ; " yet 
when counted they were after all but nineteen hun- 
dred and fifty persons, all told, there, and most of 
them were shabby fellows enough, some indeed just 
out of the penitentiary. Many have the habit of 
using tlie little but significant words, " never," " al- 
ways," and the like, with a perfect looseness. " Jack, 
you are the laziest fellow existing, and never do any- 
thing from morning to night," whereas he had that 
very day, when this sweeping assertion was made, 
been running on nine errands for the complainant 
to the milliner, grocer, and dry-goods store, beside 
tending the cradle two hours together, and answer- 
ing the door-bell seven times, to tell callers that the 
lady had gone into the country, — that is, was busy 



84 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

up-stairs preparing a dress for some of the anniver- 
saries. We overheard one individual charging an- 
other with making a thousand mistakes in a piece 
of writing, which did not, on investigation, contain 
more than five hundred words in alL Moreover, 
this man alleged that a certain newspaper, notori- 
ously carefully printed, " was always full of mis- 
takes, the very worst in this respect in the whole 
country." On being challenged to point them out, 
he did not find one, but protested that he could, 
give him time. 

This hyperbole of speech runs into extravagance 
of conduct, but of this nothing will now be said. 
Concerning this disagreeable trick of speech, it is to 
be remarked that it defeats itself. One cannot be 
positive about the statements of a man who has su- 
perlatives perpetually on his tongue. Overcharged 
assertions are falsehoods, though they may not be 
lies for the want of a malicious intent. But they 
wholly deprive the person employing them of all 
credit in his statements. He commits the very com- 
mon mistake of destroying the vigor of his language 
by the intense and overwrought phrases which he 
thought would give it strength. The impression 
made by such a person is tiierefore feeble, his ex- 
pressions being received as sound and fury, signify- 
ing nothing. The way to affect by language is to 
speak the truth in simplicity, nothing exaggerating, 



EXAGGERATION IN CONVERSATION 85 

and setting down naught in a false light. Renounce 
this injurious habit, for it robs the language of its 
strength. When superlatives and intense expres- 
sions are made to do service on trivial occasions, 
nothing will be left for use at times when all the 
resources of the language w^ill be required as vehi- 
cles for thoughts the most powerful, and emotions 
the most profound. 

There is a species of exaggeration so bold, ingen- 
ious, and extraordinary as to deserve the name of 
w^it. " His horse was not a circumstance to my 
Arthur in speed. Arthur outstripped him at once, 
and was as much faster as lightning is than a fu- 
neral." This is a not very strong example that just 
occurs to us. It runs in the blood of certain fami- 
lies, and is a kind of efflorescence of imagination 
not under judicious restraint. The mischief is, that 
many believe they can exhibit this sort of talent, as 
others think they can pun, when they cannot. The 
conversation of such persons, consequently, rarely 
rises higher than that of those pretenders to smart 
talk, who interlard all they have to say, sometimes 
compose the staple of it, with some current cant 
phrases. One of these has made a large part of 
some peoples' talk for several years past ; it is the 
phrase "you know." 

A gentleman of this school addressed us the other 
day somewhat as follow^s ; " On my arrival at Wash- 



86 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

ington, you hioiv^ I was sent for by the President, 
you hnow^ who wanted to see me on a matter of 
importance. I did not suppose I should see Miss 
Lane, you hnoiv^ but I was shown, you hiow^ by- 
express command of the President, into the draw- 
ing-room where she was. I found her as charming 
in conversation, you hnow^ as she was fascinating in 
person," &c., &c. Now I did not know any of 
these things, and, what is more, I did not beheve 
them ; but such poor gabble as this prevails exten- 
sively. Gentlemen, and sometimes ladies too, must 
have some cant word to bring in frequently to fill 
up, round off the style, and help them with its oar 
to skull along. Those who have the habit of pro- 
fane swearing make use of the windy sails of oaths 
for this purpose, of which it must be said they are 
only worse than the everlasting you hnoiv one hears 
in all companies. 



JPl^^^^^^ 


li^l^M^^^^- 




MAN WITH A CANE. 

HE true secret in the economy of life, as well 
as in that of nature, seems to be to dispense 
with all show and expense not necessary 
for utility. Numbers all around us surpass this rea- 
sonable limit, and instead of proportioning their out- 
lay to the end to be obtained, their ambition would 
appear to be to make as great an exhibition of their 
resources as they can, while they don't mind in the 
least how contemptible and inadequate the results 
may be. If two wheels of a carriage are sufficient, 
why add more ? Still, if four have advantages, it is 
prudent to have them. But some limit must be 
imposed, and so mankind have hence conceived the 
aphoristic comparison that any superfluous object 
of foohsh desire is no more wanted than a fifth 
wheel to a coach. The same idea is sometimes 
expressed to a child, whose little pockets and hands 
are already entirely full of goodies upon Christmas- 
Day, and who yet cries for more : — " My child," 
the father exclaims, " you do not need it any more 
than a toad wants a tail." 



88 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

This thought suggests another, namely, whether 
a toad does really feel the want of that prolongation, 
or does not ? If not, then another query follows ; 
of what possible utility a tail can be to a turkey ? 
Was its usefulness the final cause of its existence, 
or was the turtle, or tortoise, endowed with it as an 
ornament, with which he was enriched simply be- 
cause he had a convenient shell or house to put it 
in, as the toad has not ? But our plan is not to pur- 
sue the investigation now, if we ever do, but this 
whole question of how much is required for orna- 
ment, how much for comfort, and why men have but 
two legs, and horses have four, with the collateral 
inquiries of why they have no more, and why they 
have so many, when reptiles have none at all, — 
these reflections, we say, have suggested an obser- 
vation of the means by which one of the animals 
mentioned — man — has attempted to supply the 
denials of Nature by inventing a kind of third leg 
for his own particular use. 

For our own part, we never could be persuaded 
to purchase a cane, or third leg, unless the seller 
would agree to send it home. An umbrella is rather 
more of this sort of thing than we are willing to 
lug about, and a handle without the silk expansion 
looks too much like a fool's bauble. But this ab- 
surdity is not perceived in the present fashion of 
carrying sticks in the hand, as baboons are described 



MAN WITH A CANE. 89 

doing in their native forests, and we are acquainted 
with one excellent gentleman in particular, who has 
an uncommon passion for a stick, and exhibits his 
idiosyncrasy daily, by never going abroad, or any- 
where indeed, on any account, without his cane. 

It is indeed a very pretty India joint, with a 
handle of ivory, to which is attached a death-doing 
looking dagger ; but the stick, when this is properly 
enclosed, and everything is in the right place, is a 
smooth, polished, and innocent appearing toy. 
Some characters resemble this beautiful cane very 
much, when in repose and made up for show, yet, 
as well as the India joint within that shining out- 
side, contain a tiger which is capable, when un- 
chained, of being aroused to deeds of anger and 
revenge. 

For no such intent, however, does this gentleman 
make it his perpetual companion. He thinks no ill 
of others, and does not suspect any wrong from 
them. His poniard is therefore, at best, but a dor- 
mant partner. It is the cane which is his friend, 
not its contents. With this he sits, and stands, he 
rides, and walks. He parts not from it in-doors nor 
out-doors, in the parlor nor the chamber. He 
breakfasts, dines, and sups in its company, and, it 
is said, sleeps with his hand upon the ivory. Is it 
a talisman ? We suppose it must be, for he pressed 
it against his chin, his lips, his cheek, his forehead, 



90 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

his nose, as if to absorb its hidden virtue at every 
pore. 

Look out for the gentleman with the slender cane. 
None need to fear, least of all to shun him, for he is 
courteous, a man of honor and position. But he is 
rather queer, is n't he ? For one, however, we have 
a liking for oddities, provided they are innocent. 
They smack of mystery, excite curiosity, and add 
variety to life ; and variety, the copy-book says, is 
charming. 

Consequently we have a fancy for old Dr. David 
Potter, who used to preach with a cane in his hand 
to mark the emphasis in his forcible way ; while 
Dr. John B. Smith could not go on in his sermon 
without carrying occasionally a little bit of paper 
to his short-sighted eyes, though it was entirely 
blank. 




"POOR RICHARD" DENOUNCED. 



T is wonderful and almost incredible what 
an extent of influence is exerted in his 
proper sphere by every individual and 
agency in Great Britain to promote the vital inter- 
est of the nation — the supply of all creation with 
their manufactures. Their trading and industrial 
classes are everlastingly holding forth the doc- 
trine that Eno;land has a kind of natural rio;ht to 
supply all the universe with every useful and orna- 
mental ware, and that it is everybody's duty to ap- 
ply to her workshops for everj^thing they want. It 
is a matter of course that they should preach this 
doctrine in foreign parts, as well as at home. They 
would but half perform their work if they should 
produce the manufactures without sending out with 
them the arguments whereby their exclusive title to 
make them for the nations should be defended. 

But a belief in the creed runs in the blood of 
every native of the Island. It would be a sufficient 
evidence that a man was not an Englishman, if 
such was not his undoubting faith. It is taught in 



92 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

childhood, and in the schools, and is among the num- 
ber perhaps of tlieir innate ideas, if there are any 
such. The persuasion gro\YS with them and over- 
shadovrs their reason, and the pecuhar notion, as 
peculiar as anything in South Carolina, is dissemi- 
nated in pamphlets and periodicals, and reeks in the 
newspaper press. We have heard, but are not sure, 
that what is thus spread by lay-preachers in the 
highways and by-ways of society, is sometimes 
inculcated in sermons. We have been told that 
books on the mathematics have been written to pro- 
mote the designs of a party. We know that meta- 
physics have been made to descend from their pure 
and mysterious heights of absolute intellectuality to 
serve interested ends, and historic tomes been writ- 
ten to pander to a faction. We are, therefore, less 
surprised than we might otherwise be, that the re- 
motest and least liable to be suspected agencies of 
opinion have been resorted to for the sake of poison- 
ing the public mind with false ideas in political econ- 
omy. Quarterhes might be expected to be purchased 
for this purpose, and magazines. But one is reluc- 
tantly compelled to believe that graver works are 
but treacherously pursuing the vocation which has 
been assigned them by the predominant genius and 
interest of a whole country, when we find them 
soberly, and with apparent sincerity, laying down 
principles of moral truth, to serve the purposes of 



"POOR RICHARD" DENOUNCED. 93 

gain. Yet, be not deceived. One must not listen 
too implicitly to the gravest and most edifying eth- 
ical lectures. Our fathers went to the cornfield 
armed, and on their watch against the faithless In- 
dians. Their descendants must now examine every 
magazine and book with a certain impy'imatur upon 
it, lest an asp may lie concealed beneath its perfid- 
ious leaves. 

On taking up " Blackwood " not long ago, we 
were amazed to discover an artful writer there in 
favor of British manufactures, going a little beyond 
most of his tribe, and invading the seminal princi- 
ples of human conduct — the very sources of 
thouo;ht. This is bemnnins; at the bemnnino;. He 
is, however, sagacious in his plan ; would he were 
equally right in the end at which he is aiming ! 

Would you believe it ? This smart fellow is try- 
ing to batter down " Poor Richard's Almanac ! " 
It is a fact ; he is putting out all his strength to 
laugh out of American hearts the apothegms of dear 
old "Poor Richard." Those wise and pithy sayings, 
which Franklin found already in the hearts of his 
countrymen, and did not invent, but merely put 
upon their tongues, — these axioms unuttered till 
that ffreat man came, — this cunnino; Britisher is 
attempting to repudiate by ridicule ; and for what, 
think you ? Why, to help British manufactures ! 
That is the whole secret, found at the bottom of so 



94 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

many of their disquisitions, not to say morality, — 
the sly chap wants to get rid, somehow or other, of 
Franklin's prudential adages, which have been ven- 
erated for a century, and have contributed to the 
good conduct of his countrymen, for the sake of bet- 
tering the market in America for English goods ! 
Yes ; all our ideas which regulate behavior must be 
laid hold of at their very fountain-head in our first 
principles, and turned into the channel of British 
catechism, in order to widen and deepen the foreign 
market in this country. So Kossuth tried to repu- 
diate the " Farewell Address," to let in his doctrine 
of American intervention in the Hungarian affairs. 
Who would have thought of tapping American 
human-nature so far back? Why, they will inter- 
polate their ideas of the necessity of British work- 
shops into American primers next. But hear him. 
" We have an intense antipathy to the mean apo- 
thegms Avhich we occasionally see quoted, we pre- 
sume, from the margin of Miser's Almanac," — 
meaning Poor Richard's, — " Waste not, w^ant 
not ; " "a pin a day is a groat a year ; " "a penny 
saved is a penny got ; " " there are forty sixpences 
in a pound ; and a pound is the seedling of a hun- 
dred." The reiteration of these axioms is, " Black- 
wood " says, offensive ; and they sound like the max- 
ims of a scavenger. This comes droUy from a 
schoolmaster who is reported not to be backward in 



''POOR RICHARD" DENOUNCED. 95 

their practice himself, whatever he may now pre- 
tend and urge for the sake of selHng his work 
abroad. But let that pass. He proceeds m the 
spirit of a drummer to observe, " that one coat in 
the year may be sufficient to cover your nakedness ; 
but, if you can afford it, by all means get three or 
four." Certainly every foreign manufacturer says 
that, for is not it for the benefit of the trade ? 
" You have the comfortable conviction that you are 
contributing to the support of a score of excellent 
individuals, including the farmer, manufacturer, 
(both in JEngland,^ and Snip the tailor, who looks to 
you for his daily cabbage." There, the moral phi- 
losophy of this haberdasher in " Blackwood " is 
here enforced, and by himself. He tells us in plain 
language that he wishes us to buy and wear out as 
many English clothes as we can, because we there- 
by help to support their farmers, manufacturers, and 
mechanics. And for this the wise and time-ap- 
proved maxims of the immortal Franklin, that true 
representative of the Yankee nation, the American 
Socrates, are to be brought into disrepute, and our 
principles of economy contaminated at their source. 




MUSCLE. 



E have frequently, and very lately too, taken 
occasion to introduce and urge the subject 
of MUSCLE, and the importance of cultivating 
its powers. We do not mean the muscle that was 
found in Jersey creeks two or three years ago, but 
quite another sort, yet bringing to its fortunate pos- 
sessor a pearl of more worth than any found by the 
most lucky of the muscle-hunters in our waters. 

If any excuse is needed for insisting frequently 
on the high value of good muscles, it is supplied by 
the fact that to make people sensible of the impor- 
tance of their generous development is about as diffi- 
cult, and requires nearly the same amount of repeti- 
tion and persevering exhortation, as to effect that 
development itself The strengthening of the phys- 
ical faculties is admitted to require long and constant 
exercise ; but it really seems to require no less 
persistence to convince people actually of the truth 
of the assertion, so far, at least, as to persuade them 
to act upon it in their lives. A considerable number 
may be made to believe that the exercise of the 



MUSCLE. 97 

muscular system may improve it somewhat, but few 
out of the whole can be practically convinced that 
it will in any valuable degree be made applicable to 
themselves. If a man, they think, happens to be 
constituted by nature like Dr. Windship, the strong 
man of Roxbury, who is said to be all shoulders^ it 
may be well enough to try to render those shoulders 
stronger by their perpetual exercise. In this way 
he is reported to have very recently augmented his 
power of raising with his hands weights from nine 
hundred and twenty-nine to ten hundred and thirty- 
two pounds, — almost a fabulous achievement for 
anybody, and especially for one said to be only about 
twenty-five years of age. 

But still, it will be asked, What is the use of 
a narrow-chested, weak-shouldered man trying to 
shoulder a barrel of flour, lifting it from the ground 
as easily as if it were a water-melon or a bushel of 
potatoes ? The utihty is, that this and similar 
athletic practices will augment the physical faculties 
and largely develop them, though perhaps never to 
such an extent as to impart the ability to raise a 
dead weight of eleven hundred pounds, or even to 
shoulder one of Bennett's enormous prize-pumpkins 
without difficulty. 

Athletic exercises and the general development 
of the physical man have another value entirely 
distinct from that of rendering the body a powerful 
7 



98 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

machine, — namely, the conservation of the health. 
But this is a topic often dwelt on, and we choose to 
confine our thoughts at present to the branch of the 
great subject of muscular cultivation on which we 
have just touched, — the improvement of the human 
body as a locomotive, an engine for labor, protection, 
and attack. The educated human locomotive can 
out-travel the horse, and its ability for instructed as 
well as merely animal labor is sufficiently displayed 
in the great productions which adorn or improve 
the world, from the Pyramids down to the Great 
Eastern. It is the feature of the human muscle as 
a protector and invader, that at the present period 
seems to claim a word of explanation. 

The time has come in the increased liberty of 
men, especially of the American man, when the 
human muscle has attained a value never known 
before. In former ages, men's hands were manacled 
and their feet fettered by tyrants. What was then 
the utility of the strong arm, but to labor ; of the 
broad shoulder, but to bear burdens ; of the stout leg, 
but to run on errands at the mandate of despots ? 
That era is past, and the physical man is at length 
rising in the market, and even the black man par- 
ticipates in the upward tendency. The sinewy arm 
is beginnmg to be in particular request. For several 
years it has been obviously outstripping the intel- 
lectual part of the human organism ; it has at last 



MUSCLE. 99 

attained a price at least on a level with mental 
talent, which it frequently surpasses. This price is 
a little uncertain, but is always high. As genius 
has no established market-value, so the pugilistic 
faculty has no exact quotation -price. This depends 
on fashion and caprice, just as the lecture of Mr. 
A will fetch a hundred dollars in the market, while 
that of Mr. B, of superior quality, will scarcely 
sell for thirty. 

The muscle-power of the higher kinds cannot be 
had, however, at the moderate estimate of thirty, or 
even a hundred, dollars for an evening. A single 
night or day's use of a first-rate brawny arm — for 
it is a day-and-night machine, working equally well 
in both — will cost sometimes the price of a likely 
negro ; and it is cheap at that in any localities ; on 
special occasions, in Baltimore for example, and we 
may say not seldom in New York and Philadelphia 
too, a man cannot put his vote into the ballot-box, 
or even get the desired nomination of candidates 
to vote for, but with the useful aid of the muscle- 
power. 

In the animal kingdom every one has observed 
that strength carries the day. The strongest ox, 
cow, dog, horse, rules the rest, and secures the first 
drink, the choicest morsels. The barn-door fowls 
obey this law, as well as the wild bird, the lion, and 
the tigers of the forest. Corporal strength is king 



100 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

and emperor, without which cotton would be no bet- 
ter than coal ; and were man not stronger, putting 
all his faculties together, than the strongest among 
the other creatures of earth, he, with all his logic, 
oratory, fine taste, and mathematics, would have to 
play second, third, or fourth fiddle to the elephant, 
the lion, or the tiger. The civil war which raged 
m the early ages with those fierce beasts is over 
now, but man had to fight hard for the mastery. 

That contest with brutes being ended, a civil 
war has broken out between man and man ; and 
the strong man, hitherto kept down by the artifice 
of despots, appears to be getting the upperhand, 
especially in the United States, where they are 
making the experiment of trying to keep society 
together and improve it by reason, and not by force 
nor fraud. We shall see ; if not, our posterity will. 
In the meanwhile, as we have said, muscle is look- 
ing up ; the article, from fair to middling, is in con- 
stant demand, and the supply good. The hard 
heads are looking down, as they eye their hard 
hands and long arms, upon smooth beavers and kid 
gloves. The dandies and exquisites are suffering 
the greatest change. As a first step, they are 
beginning to despise one another ; the next will 
come soon, when they will have an equal contempt 
for themselves. 



THE HORSE-RACE AND BULL-FIGHT. 




HE Exhibition of Horses near one of our 
cities, which lately so much aroused the at- 
tention of the public, calling up even the 
chivalrous spirits of the Ancient Dominion, accom- 
plished many worthy objects, there is no doubt ; but 
it failed to teach a lesson of humanity, so much 
needed, in the treatment of that noble, but suffering, 
we will not call him beast, because it w^ould be de- 
rogatory to human nature, which in some respects 
really seems inferior. Since that assembly, where 
the horse was caressed and fondled by the beautiful 
and intelligent of both sexes, what has the country 
been called on to witness ? A cold, deliberate, un- 
feeling, lingering murder of one of the choicest speci- 
mens of that helpmate of man which the world has 
seen ! Would anybody believe, that, within a little 
month after the glorification of that creature at the 
festival on the banks of the Connecticut, men and 
women could stand by and witness the torture of 
the great Trotter on Long Island Course for the 
space of nine hours ? Could it be credited, that, not 



102 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

content with that unparalleled performance, the 
spectators would be so inhuman as to suffer any- 
brute to drive the overspent horse a mile further to 
win a bet, though all must have been morally cer- 
tain that the feat would be followed by his imme- 
diate death ? 

Americans may talk till they are hoarse of the 
cruelty of the Spanish bull-fights, — it is all gabble 
and sham. They love them ; and there are multi- 
tudes who have assumed the name of American, 
ready to get them up without a moment's delay, if 
they knew how, or the public heart would tolerate 
the violation of morality. The attempt was made 
a few years ago to have a buffalo-hunt on the right 
bank of the Hudson, near New York ; but, thank 
Heaven, the wild oxen smelt a rat, took to their 
heels and ran away, to the discomfiture of the 
gapers and gamblers, but not to certain speculators, 
we believe, who pocketed handsome ferry-fees and 
other substantial fruits of the adventure. A bull- 
fight is no worse than a desperate horse-race, like 
that to which we have alluded. It is no worse for 
a poor beast to be pitted in a death-struggle against 
another in the ring than on a race-course; to be 
gored to death by the horns of an antagonist, or to 
die by the bursting open of the citadel of life by 
compulsory efforts beyond his strength. To the 
speculators, it makes no difference. Those, too, who 



THE HORSE-RACE AND BULL-FIGHT. 103 

are capable of witnessing with satisfaction such a 
spectacle as occurred on the Long Island Course, 
w^ould gladly attend a bull-fight, if they could, and 
oftener than they would the opera. 

There is an immense amount of cruelty to ani- 
mals in this country, which, though known well 
enough to some people, others appear never to sus- 
pect. But let it be understood that there is enough 
to disqualify the citizens of this Republic from pass- 
ing judgment on cruel practices and sports in any 
other country; and particularly sufficient to shut 
their mouths effectually against denouncing the 
enormity of the bull-fight. 

If there is to be any mortal running, we prefer 
to have the owners and backers of horse-flesh do it 
for themselves. And if there is to be any fighting 
to the death, we want Nicholas and Abdul Medjid 
to go to it personally pell-mell. It gives one a 
great deal of pleasure to have Yankee Sullivan and 
his competitor pound one another, not only because 
they both richly deserve a beating, but because this 
wholesome castigation of each other may save the 
backs or heads of some poor horses subjected to the 
violence and caprice of such base counterfeits of 
manhood. 



CHANGE. 



ITHIN a few short years almost every pro- 
cess, and every object also, lias undergone 
a material change. An old burgher who 
had been absent five -and- twenty winters would not 
know Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore 
on his return. The face of the country in many 
great particulars has altered. Hills, if they do not 
skip like lambs, as in the times of David, travel off 
to fill up hollows, or are levelled into plains. They 
are not safe nowadays, unless a monument is clapped 
upon them, as on Bunker's. Without some such 
protection none of the noses of the St. Anthonies 
are safe. Even Beacon has been condemned to 
bear houses instead of honors. In a few years Ni- 
agara will be yoked to the great water-wheel, and be 
seen grinding corn, as the Passaic has been for a 
long while making cotton cloth and paper. 

They do not do anything now as they used to do. 
They neither plough, nor sow, nor rake, nor reap, 
as they did a little while ago. People do not work 
now; they look on and see the blackies and boilers 



CHANGE. 105 

sweating at it, while they smoke and play. Many 
men nsecl to have many minds, and travel in fifty 
directions on a journey. Now they all go together 
to the same point. Great has been the revolution 
on the sea, as well as on the land. The free ocean 
has been enslaved. Brought up to the boiling-point, 
it proves a better servant than the wind, which is a 
chartered libertine at the best. Men waited once 
for wind and weather ; these are no lono-er men- 
tioned, except in some old almanacs. 

A few things remind one of past times. The 
rain comes down very much according to the old 
fashion ; but it does not wet one as formerly, on 
account of the India-rubber. And the thunder — 
ah ! it sounds natural still. Never has there been 
better than some we had last evenincr. No deteri- 
oration or change there, thank Heaven ! That 
thunder the rogues cannot steal, though Morse and 
others have the lightning. But there is enough left, 
as we also saw last evening, and of a beautiful rose- 
color, too. Let them turn the sun into a painter, 
the lightning into a postman, if they will. They 
cannot do anything with thunder, but to make 
bonny-clabber. After all, they are none of them 
so altered, but what we know them still. But 
Society, its habitations, pastimes, fashions, and em- 
ployments — why, we hardly know them, unless 



106 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

one*s eyes are kept upon them daily, any more 
than we recognize an infant in the brocade and 
bravery of a maiden at eighteen. The face of 
Nature changes rapidly, but that of Society out- 
strips it. 

The inhabitants of the earth used to live upon it. 
They now live under it, down out of sight in cellars, 
or else up where the birds once made their nests. 
A quarter of a century ago, an exemplary man and 
wife resided together with their children, like a 
home-staying rooster, his mate, and chickens. You 
will find them now packed up in hotels, where there 
is no telling hardly one man's wife from another's, 
as thick together as a flock of blackbirds, and as 
noisy. Families are abolished, and Society is col- 
lected into flocks ; but we are rejoiced to see the 
barn-door fowl still sticking to his instincts — a surer 
guide in some respects than reason, especially when 
paralyzed by fashion. 

But there is no end to these speculations, nor 
pleasure in them neither ; so we will only add, that 
the face of Society is so changed that its best friends 
cannot recognize the frankness and heartiness 
which once sat so kindly on its features. In some 
instances its natural expression is said to be covered 
up by paint. The principal cause is feared, however, 
to proceed from within. Were all well there, the 



CHANGE. 107 

face of Society, like the countenance of the fallen 
archangel in Milton, would still be beautiful. It is 
the change at the centre of each individual, which 
has wrought so great a one upon the exterior as to 
render it not easy to recognize its ancient openness 
and simphcity. 





STYLE. 

HERE is a worthy gentleman who care- 
fully reads all the advertisements in the 
paper ; sometimes, indeed, he ventures a 
little further, but never to the neglect of these. 
As may be at once imagined, he is the possessor of 
vast erudition, and is better acquainted with the 
tastes, wants, ingenuity, and resources of society 
than almost any other person in it. Such must 
naturally be the consequence of so thorough a study 
of such a course of literature as he has for several 
years pursued. For the advertising department of 
a journal is the work of a great variety of authors, 
who understand profoundly the subjects on which 
they write, and who weigh deliberately every ex- 
pression, because it concerns them in the tenderest 
point, their pockets. If advertisements are ad- 
mirable for the correct and amj^le information they 
convey, they are in a special manner models of 
style. Strength of expression may be expected, and 
very figurative language is often to be met with, 
especially the favorite one of hyperbole, so com- 



STYLE. 109 

moil witli Oriental writers. Metaphors are occa- 
sionally used, but similes are entirely rejected ; for 
no accomplished advertiser ever can allow that any- 
body else has anything for sale at all like his own 
commodities, either in quality or fitness. 

But political and moral writers may take a lesson 
from the advertising columns in conciseness, curt- 
ness, and idiomatic vigor. These valuable graces of 
style are cultivated, because these authors have to 
answer for every idle word in money ; whereas the 
composers of the other parts of the paper fall into 
the opposite vice of redundancy from being the gain- 
ers by it. There is nothing like being obliged to 
pay for every line which one gets printed, to check 
a lavish flow of language. When tautology is an 
expensive sin, it is at once corrected, and repetition 
then becomes an unheard-of fault. 

In consequence of these severe canons of criticism, 
the proprietor of a store of four or five stories, 
stufied with goods of very great value, finds no dif- 
ficulty in expressing his ideas concerning them, in- 
cluding a graphic description of the principal, — all 
in the compass of a dozen lines. Now, just compare 
these solid and admirable productions with the 
windy editorials on the opposite side of the leaf, or, 
if you want to see the most glaring contrast, put 
them by side of an eloquent speech of a member of 
Congress. There is a difference indeed ! Speaking 
of honorable members of the Legislature reminds 



110 A UTUMN LEA VES. 

US to remark how much it would improve the style 
of speakers in that body, if a judicious plan could 
be devised whereby a small sum should be deducted 
from their pay, not only for absence from duty, but 
for gross expletives of language in their speeches, 
manifest repetitions, tautologies, and outrageous 
waste of good words, which convey no perceptible 
freight of ideas. 

To illustrate the foregoing remarks, are added a 
few advertisements taken almost at random from the 
papers. The first met with, happens to be an ex- 
ample of what may be termed " business hlanh 
verse,'''' It sticks, you see, to the point, and is very 
sweetly expressed : — 

Have constantly on hand, the usual kinds of Refined and Coffee 
Sugars and Syrups, viz : 

Loaf, small and large loaves. 

Standard and Circle A. Crushed. 
Granulated and Powdered. 

Clarified, whites and yellows. 

Sirups, in hhds., tierces, and barrels. 

The second, though comprehensive and full, is 
packed as close as such bulky articles will permit. 
Here it is : — 

MACKEREL — Nos. 1, 2, and 3, in all kinds of packages. 

SHAD — Nos. 1, 2, and 3, in do. do. 

CODFISH— Dry, salted, and pickled. 

SCALEFISH — Do. do. 

HERRINGS — Smoked and pickled. 

PORK — Mess, Prime, Rump, Butt, Clear. 

BEEF — Mess, Prime, and Railroad. 

SMOKED HAMS, Shoulders, Beef, Bacon, Salmon. 

CHEESE, Lard, Candles, Oil, Spices. 



STYLE. Ill 

The next is a short specimen of the strong style, 
in which but one error is remarked, viz., " &c." ; 
and this, no doubt, originated in the best of motives 
— the worthy desire to abbreviate ; — 

ChurchiU's augers bitts, and gimlets, 
Keith's copper tacks, brads, clout nails, &c.. 
Fitch's circular cap cabinet locks, 
Eoy & Co.'s butts and snap hinges. 
Ward & Co.'s rules, box-wood, and ivory. 

Here is a shorter and perhaps more vigorous one 
still : — 

Pig and Bar iron, gunpowder ; 
Blistered steel, ramrods, lightning rods, 
Spikes, bolts, hooks, and hatchets ; 
Clout nails, brads, and cut tacks. 

Can anything in the classic authors excel the 
following in racy, unctuous, and, toward its conclu- 
sion, powerful expression ? The length of the ad- 
vertisement is forgiven for its lusciousness : — 

Have for sale — Chow-Chow, Walnuts, Mixed Pickle, John Bull 
Sauce, Harvey, Essence of Anchovies, Reading Sauce, Essence of 
Shrimp; Walnut, Tomato, and Mushroom Catsup, Worcestershire 
Sauce, India Curry, Durham and Coleman Mustard, Schiedam Gin 
and Schnapps, Cette Port, Brown Stout, Cognac, Haut Barsax, Cote 
Rotie, Chateau Neuf de Pape, Monongahela Whiskey. 

The last line in particular has a sounding rhythm ;" 
and the whole is instinct with the same inspiration 
with which Byron and Anacreon were filled. But 
this must suffice for a taste of the admirable conden- 
sation of the advertising style, its authors having 
the fear of the reckoning of accounts, and not of 
critics, before their eyes. 





LETTER OF A DOG TO HIS BIPED 
FELLOW-CITIZENS. 

|HEN I was a pup, men almost killed me 
with kindness ; now I have grown to be a 
dog, they kill me with kicks or strychnine. 
Ladies then fondled me, stroked my back, tickled 
my head, warmed my cold nose, and sometimes 
even kissed me. What have I done to forfeit their 
love and protection ? Yes ; I am larger, that is true, 
and my teeth are stronger. What of that ? I do 
not bite them. Boys get to be men ; do women 
hate them on that account ? No ; I think not. 
Some stickle for principles, 7iot men. They are for 
principles and men ; and the ladies are doubtless in 
the right. But pigs are pets when pigs ; when they 
become hogs, they eat them. So that we see again 
that circumstances alter conduct, as well as cases. 

Why cannot I be permitted to take a walk along 
the street in summer without having my brains 
knocked out, or being poisoned by a midnight assas- 
sin ? They represent that many of us go crazy in 
hot weather. All fudge. We display more sound 



A LETTER FROM A DOG. 113 

sense in that season than our persecntors. Dogs 
stick to the city marrow-bones ; while silly men and 
women are carrying theirs round all over creation, 
and don't get a market for them after all. The 
town is the place for bones, summer and winter 
both. 

The inconsistency of men is astonishing. I was 
taught, for example, from my youth, to sjyeak for a 
piece of meat when handed to me. And now, for- 
sooth, if I offer to say a word to a man, even if it is 
the man in the moon, which I occasion'ally like to 
do, I am ordered to hold my jaw, and horsewhipped 
into the bargain, if I don't scamper. Is this fair ? 
What is the use of throwing me into the dock, be- 
cause I can swim, as everybody cannot ; I do not 
like cold water because it does not happen to drown 
me ; it feels as cold and disagreeable as if it did. 
Many men can swim, too ; let 's throw them over 
also. Why not ? 

Then making me run miles and miles, as I have 
done, after sticks on land and water ; where is the 
sport, I should like to know ? I have got brains 
enough to perceive its folly, though all boys and 
some men don't appear to have. If they suppose 
we relish the joke, because we pretend to do so, they 
very much mistake. It is nothing but a polite pre- 
tence on our part ; a little hypocrisy borrowed from 
the fashionable society we frequent. Why, you 



114 A UTUMN LEA VES. 

must be simpletons indeed, if you imagine we run 
with pleasure after a dry chip, as if it were a bone. 
No ; I, for one, am not so sad a dog as that. You 
don't catch me at such a game, any more than run- 
ning after my own tail, like a miserable cat. A dog 
kno-ws better, for he always runs away from his tail, 
especially if a tin pot is tied to the end of it by 
some son of a — gun. A sore finger to the scape- 
grace that did it to me the other day, is my sincere 
wish. 

Oh, very kind, master takes me into the parlor. 
Yes, yes, very kind indeed ; but it is only to be 
broomed out by mistress, who vows she will drive 
me away with a flea in my ear. Ah ! the nice lady 
need not do that ; I 've got enough already, which I 
ascribe to sleeping on the beds of her maids. Clean 
house that. I never stole a sheep in my life, though 
I am extravagantly fond of mutton, but I have been 
with my former master, when he did, and I was 
whipped unmercifully for it in his stead. For that 
I left him, and set up for myself, because I was un- 
willing to be punished any more for sheep-stealing, 
counterfeiting, cheating, or any other manly occupa- 
tions. I have doubtless faults enough of my own ; 
but hypocrisy and deception shall not be laid to my 
charge without an effort on my part to repel the 
calumny. I may brawl and fight, when provoked, 
as men do ; but I do not, as they do, add stratagem 



A LETTER FROM A DOG. 115 

to violence, and unite in one small skull the cun- 
ning of the fox with the ferocity of the tiger. When 
I want a thing, I get it where I can, — above-board 
I should prefer, though it is frequently thrown to 
me under the table. Out in the open air, let me 
get my living, breakfast, dine, and sup. I am will- 
ing to work for it, and do not insist on being an or- 
namental portion of a rich man's equipage to tag 
behind the carriage. Harness me in the milk or 
ashes cart ; try me, and see if I am not an indus- 
trious dog. Read your books, I pray you ; they 
testify in my favor. Learn from them what lives I 
have saved, whose loss would have rendered a noble 
line extinct or miserable ; what joy I have thus 
brought to parents, relatives, and families ! Read 
what pocket-books I have found of incalculable 
value ; what thieves, robbers, and murderers among 
your own race I have ferreted out and brought to 
justice ; what conflagrations I have prevented ! 

But I forbear ; I will not boast. I hate all kinds 
of vanity and selfishness. Give me generosity, 
self-sacrifice, benevolence. These are qualities after 
my own heart, if not of it. I love to watch and 
guard the tender lambs, as in Landseer's " Twins," 
and dash out into the lake or sea to save the life of 
a human being, though he is often forgetful of the 
obligation and ungrateful. The world does not find 
our race most numerous amon^ the wealthv ; but 



116 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

we dwell in numbers among poor white men, 
Indians, and Turks. The reason is, that riches eat 
out the heart of Christians, so that we have to go to 
the Turk, the poor man, and the savage, to find it. 
Our lot is hard with the latter, but it is shared 
with the rest of God's creatures on terms of equity ; 
and so we rest content. Anything is better than 
to be kicked and cuffed about the thoroughfares of 
civilization, as if we were stocks and stones, or no 
better than the poor sheep and calves which Chris- 
tian men torture and suffer to be tortured as long 
as they live after getting into the butcher's hands, 
and then eat. 

Oh ! I have often cried, and whined, and barked 
to no purpose, to see these poor dumb creatures cut 
with cords, piled on one another, hanging head- 
downwards upon the wheel, that ground them like 
a grindstone, weak, faint, sick in hot weather, or 
stiffened with ice and snow. They who are guilty 
of these awful cruelties are certainly men, and pro- 
fess to be Christians. But no dog would think of 
doing such things ; if he did, a club upon his brain- 
pan would teach him better manners soon ; perhaps 
poison would end him. I am truly thankful some- 
times that 1 am Si dog, and not a man — so fearful 
is his guilt, so tremendous his responsibilities. And 
yet he seems to be unconscious of them all. He 
knows enough to find out a dog's faults, and punish 



A LETTER FROM A DOG. 117 

them severely, but overlooks his own. The stran- 
gest sight that we dogs ever see, is a man who is so 
inexorably exacting of virtuous behavior in our ca- 
nine race, and yet insists on leading the very loosest 
of all lives himself. Demanding implicit obedience, 
he is at the same time an insurgent, sometimes in 
act, always in heart, against all authority, human 
or divine. 

Your Slave until Death, 





HASTE. 




BSERVE how poorly everything is done, 
when done in haste. The hasty man is 
the opposite of the quiddler, but there is 
little to choose between them. The former, indeed, 
brings the most to pass, but it is often good for 
nothing. The latter finishes well, but then there is 
nothing of it, after it is done. The character of a 
hasty man is certainly not worth affecting, and yet 
we often read at the bottom of a letter, " I am 
yours in haste, John Smith ; " when, if the truth 
were only known, Mr. Smith composed it at his 
leisure. The real secret is, he wished the last 
words to operate as "errors excepted" in accounts, 
and cover a multitude of mistakes. " Yours in 
haste," forsooth. Such a man as Mr. Smith is not 
to our taste, by any means. We want no man's 
slipshod half-thoughts, born before their time, half- 
grown, half spoilt in the delivery. 

A man in haste is, after all, very apt to be behind 
time, spending the whole day and half doing things 
in trying to overtake it. In consequence, he runs 



HASTE. 119 

over little boys in the street ; upsets chairs in the 
house ; empties the inkstand, instead of the sand, 
upon his writing ; tries to strike up a fire with his 
cigar, and puts the lucifer match into his mouth. 
If he writes for the press, he scratches off a hurried 
paragraph or two, in a race against time ; if he is a 
shoemaker, his seams rip ; if a tailor, the coat is 
sent home without any pockets. He catches up his 
cane, rushes into the shower, and has to return to 
fetch an umbrella. Legislatures in general, and 
Congress most of all, afford fine specimens, at the 
heel of a session, of labor done in haste, and how^ 
curiously the trait of haste is found connected in 
the same body, personal and corporate, with idle- 
ness and inertness. Congress, that can drag along 
through three months without a useful act, in the 
last three days loves to be heels-over-head in busi- 
ness. It is therefore just as impossible to tell wdiat 
will come out of the legislative hopper in these last 
days, as it is what Signor Blitz will extract from 
a man's mouth or nose at one of his entertain- 
ments ; it may be an onion, or a cabbage, nobody 
can guess. 

The man of haste pays a ten-dollar bill for a tur- 
key, takes one-and-eightpence for his change in sil- 
ver and copper, and forgets the rest. He walks off 
with his poultry, boasting how cheap he got it. He 
puts his friend's letter, just received, into the post- 



120 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

office, and his answer to it in his pocket ; sops up a 
puddle of ink with his handkerchief, and wipes his 
nose with the blotter ; spoils a whole quill in 
attempting to mend it in a hurry ; jumps into the 
river instead of the ferry-boat ; puts his pants on 
hindside before, and his waistcoat over his coat. 

Haste breaks glass and bones ; ruins bank-clerks ; 
makes holes in cloths and special pleading ; produces 
war ; gets a ship on the rocks, which it cannot get 
off, and a bachelor into matrimony, which he can- 
not get out of again. The hasty speech is soon 
cold again, — but not till it has lit up a flame in 
another's breast, that does not go out so soon ; the 
hasty word is followed by slow repentance. Haste 
makes waste, hinders speed, and is to be recom- 
mended chiefly in cooking a beefsteak. In accom- 
plishing anything, it uses the worst tools and the 
most expensive method, clutching at what is next 
at hand, is bad in bargains, to be avoided by the 
statesman, irreconcilable with grace and dignity in 
manners. It never discovered a planet, invented 
a machine or process, produced an epic, built a 
pyramid or temple, or fabricated anything designed 
to last. We know of nothing that is the better for 
haste, unless it may be a hasty-pudding and a hasty 
plate of soup ; of which one must be allowed to be 
illustrious, and the other useful. 





COOKS AND COOKERY. 

HE celebrated French cook Soyer invests 
his rule for boilino; a potato with so many 
qualifications as to be of little or no use to 
a practical operator in the culinary art. Nor can 
anybody make toast, it is affirmed, by his directions. 
One may as well expect to profit by formulas in 
grammar, where the exceptions from the rules are 
as numerous as the agreements. 

The fact is that cookery is a matter of judgment, 
or rather an inspiration, not depending on exact 
recipes. The intelligent cook, as well as the intel- 
ligent physician, works by symptoms more than by 
science. The variety of combination in disease is 
infinite ; it is no less so in cookery, where the 
process varies not only with the material to be used, 
but also with its quality, which is rarely the same. 
The cook cannot therefore act on precedents. His 
business is not a science, but an art. One must 
therefore be born a cook, and cannot be made one. 
His faculties may be cultivated, sharpened, im- 
proved ; but his taste must be natural, it cannot 
be acquired. 



122 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

It results fi'om this, that, even in so simple a pro- 
cess as that of boiling a potato, a sea-captain, who 
was an epicure, was right when he remarked that 
not one cook in a thousand, no matter how high his 
pretensions, could boil a potato. Soyer himself 
could not teach it ; he could only give some general 
hints, which after all required a cooking-genius to 
work out and apply. Says he, " It may be that 
they (potatoes) require to be put into hoil'mg water, 
or maybe into cold^ and either boiled quick or slow ; 
but this you mu%t find out^'' says he. Alas for the 
poor devil of a mere " Secretary of the cooking- 
department, who gropes his way by the help of prec- 
edents which he finds on file," without the intui- 
tive glance and insight of a Chatham of the kitchen- 
cabinet ! How is a copier of other men's thoughts, 
the diligent and perhaps learned student of the 
books, ever to " find out " whether the water ought 
to be " hot or cold," or the potato boiled " quick or 
slow " ? '' Put a piece of lime into the water," says 
Soyer, " about the size of a nut, and some salt." 
What kind of a nut, how much salt, good Soyer ? 
How is a man to know this, unless he has been born, 
not with a silver spoon merely, but a potato in his 
mouth, that is, with the faculty of discerning the 
spirits — the very different spirits — that inhabit 
potatoes ? Judgment, dear Soyer, is what is wanted, 
as well as lime and salt, — and judgment, too, much 
bigger than a nut of any description. 



COOKS AND COOKERY. 123 

Exquisite taste and judicial sagacity — these are 
the required endowments for a cook. And what an 
endowment do these qualities comprise for a single 
individual ! The judicial talent, ample enough to 
fit its possessor for a seat on the bench of the Su- 
preme Court, and the nice and delicate taste w^hich, 
if turned to the pictorial profession, might exhibit 
to the world a Stuart, a Huntingdon, or Church. 
Do not then complain that a sauce is not well com- 
pounded, that a pudding has deficiences, a soup im- 
perfections. Do not find fault even if the potatoes 
are not mealy. Rather thank God that you have 
any potatoes at all. If the devil sends cooks, just 
consider the difficulty of obtaining the almost divine 
faculty which is necessary even for the proper boil- 
ing of a potato, or the execution of a reputable 
toast. And can you expect that mental powers 
sufficient to qualify a man for a seat upon the 
Bench, or to hold the pencil of Michael Angelo, 
can be enticed into a kitchen, to vent there his 
glorious aspirations upon lime, salt, and potatoes, for 
the small remuneration of ten or twelve, or twice 
ten or twelve dollars a month ? Alas, alas, it can- 
not be expected. 

And shall we continue to go on as we have done, 
impoverishing ourselves with purchasing potatoes at 
exorbitant prices, which there is not talent enough 
in the country to . cook ? Shall we always thus 



124 AUTUMN LEAVES. * 

remain in ignorance how to adapt to our use this 
precious gift from Heaven ? One remedy occurs to 
us, but it is a desperate one, and is this. Draw off 
from strumming on the piano, the harp, and guitar 
some of those fine capacities which Nature evidently 
designed originally for excellent cooks, but are now 
prostituted into miserable musicians, often intoler- 
able to others, rarely affording pleasure even to 
themselves. Could this project be accomplished, 
long before a new opera could be mastered, an 
amount of abilities would be directed to cookery — 
that most useful of accomplishments — sufficient 
not only to boil a potato and make a toast as they 
should be, but even to make some progress towards 
the invention of such a thing as a sauce, of which 
the United States is wholly destitute at present. 

Among all the schools, academies, colleges, and 
universities, (bless the word, for that is all there is 
of it !) a school for instructing girls in housekeeping 
is felt to be a pressing want. They may talk of 
schools for sketching, painting, dancing, walking, — 
of lessons on the piano, harp, and voice, — some of 
them, perhaps all, have something to do in de- 
veloping, moulding, polishing the mind and man- 
ner, and rendering woman agreeable, — but what 
are they, O ye graces three ! when put in compar- 
ison with the glorious accomplishment of the fine 
art of Cookery? 



COOKS AND COOKERY. 125 

We are all charmed, fascinated, by a lovely 
creature uniting the outside of a goddess with the 
interior furniture of a De Stael ; still, even if she 
combine in that beautiful casket all the talents 
and acquirements of the nine Muses themselves, 
one thing would be lacking, one faculty indispensa- 
ble to the complete and perfect w^oman, — and that 
is, the possession of the exquisite accomplishment 
of cookery. The other feminine acquisitions in 
science and the fine arts are of a personal, selfish 
nature ; they set off the mind or body of the mis- 
tress of them to very great advantage ; but they 
centre in the w^oman herself, and act, like the 
President's secretaries, as ministers of his will and 
pleasure. But the cook is essentially a generous, 
beneficent being, whose every action is for the 
gratification of others. Their pleasure is her load- 
star — the everlasting object of her thought. It is 
this unselfish, sacrificing, expansive benevolence, 
that does not simply win upon and delight you, — 
it affects and absolutely subdues. No one can stand 
against the delicious invasions of the great cook 
who overcomes and entrances mind and body by 
her cunning manipulations, as Venus enveloped 
^neas in her celestial cloud. 

Yet daughters are never taught this victorious 
art. No one ever gives them a lesson on the sub- 
ject. Their mothers don't, of course, because they 



126 AUTUMN LEAVES.. 

are profoundly ignorant themselves. Nobody does, 
for nobody seems to know either its value or its 
beauty. We have spoken of the latter, but the 
art of cookery is exceedingly economical. You 
did not suspect this, did you? We thought so. 
Still it is very useful, we assure you ; and a good 
cook can set forth a more satisfactory breakfast or 
dinner for a dollar, than an ordinary, clumsy, and 
ignorant, greasy gruel-maker would for five. But 
these last are tolerated because their employers 
know no better. There are no lady-cooks. The 
whole business of cooking remains almost as much 
a mystery to the mass of people as it was when 
bread was baked on hot stones, and meal was 
ground between two cold ones. Mothers don't 
know how to boil a potato, toast a slice of bread, 
compound a wholesome, yet toothsome sauce or 
gravy; how then should the daughters'? Here 
and there is a family which has handed down the 
knack of doing certain things economically, sensibly, 
and agreeably. They are heirlooms, and have an 
indescribable charm. But nobody else catches the 
art ; perhaps even the well-instructed family add 
little or nothing to the transmitted accomplishment. 
Still they preserve what they have received. And 
thus most excellent methods are in use in many a 
domestic circle, of which the world is ignorant, and 
likely to remain so till schools of instruction in the 



COOKS AND COOKERY. 127 

culinary art shall take the place of those for the 
culture of insipid tastes, of knowledge without any 
useful aim, and barren and sometimes hurtful ac- 
complishments. The noble art of cookery is not to 
be learned in a cook-book, nor in Irish kitchens, 
nor genteel kitchens under Irish administration. 
It is one of the fine arts, in which viva voce in- 
structions are to be given by those who know to 
those who can learn ; which lessons are to be illus- 
trated by experiments, like any others in Natural 
Philosophy ; for cookery is a branch of physics, 
to be taught among the humanities. 

We suppose that Heaven sends cooks, which is 
another phrase for poeta nascitur, for we demur 
to the common adage which makes this the work 
of the gentleman whom we would rather not men- 
tion. Heaven provides cooks as well as meats ; and 
those of the highest order are born cooks. They are 
natural, like the poet ; but they must be taught as 
well as the orator, who, by the by, is as natural a 
genius as the poet, notwithstanding Master Horace. 
The taught cook, however, is incapable of that 
freedom of flight, that richness of fancy, that belongs 
to the native-born. He will answer, however, for 
the present age and generation, who are as thor- 
oughly delighted with eating their victuals served 
up in the unknown French language, as they are 
to listen to an opera in equally unknown German 
or Italian. 



128 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

We have given this subject a prominent place, 
because we think it is more entitled to it than a 
message from President Buchanan, or a speech of 
Senator Toombs. And wq could, if we chose, il- 
lustrate its importance by the example of Alexan- 
der Dumas, who has been travelling in Russia ; for 
the first thino; he did on his recent visit to Paris 
was to publish a work upon Russian Cookery. It 
is the art of arts. 

You need not laugh at cookery, nor turn up your 
pretty nose, young lady, because we recommend it 
as a liberal artistic accomplishment for your sex ; 
yes, the best of them. Find not fault «vith the in- 
justice of the social system, as long as this useful 
and honorable department, requiring the best talents 
and skill, remains open to you ; and what is more, 
remains unfilled. It is a fact, that, notwithstanding 
the pressing demand for cooks, even of moderate 
qualifications, they are not to be had. A lamenta- 
ble dearth prevails, discreditable to the sex, injuri- 
ous to the happiness of families, unfriendly to their 
health. The grossest ignorance prevails in some of 
the simplest and most common manipulations. How 
many girls employed in kitchens can stew an 
oyster, broil a steak, or even toast a slice of bread, 
as it ought to be ? 

Say not that this is small business. Nothing 
which concerns human happiness is trivial. Can 



COOKS AND COOKERY. 129 

that act be a trifle, beneath a man's or lady's notice, 
which is necessarily repeated three times at least 
every day, and every time productive either of our 
weal or woe ? Do you say that cooking is doubtless 
an indispensable affair, and ought to be in compe- 
tent hands ; but that it is an excessively vulgar oc- 
cupation, requiring a body's presence in the kitchen ? 
And can anybody imagine that a lady is going to 
degrade herself by descending to that apartment of 
boilers, and onions, stewpans, and soap-fat ? Let us 
tell this spirited and delicate remonstrant that a 
woman's, as well as a man's, place is where she can 
be useful ; that she who thinks that her presence 
in her own kitchen, and occasiona.1 oversight of its 
work, degrades her, will also imagine that visits to 
the dark alleys of suffering, and the hovels of the 
daughters of want, are unbecoming. We never 
found your over- sensitive and elevated people, who 
were too refined to take good care of their own 
households, did much good in charity or sympathy 
to those of other people. What ! are goose and 
gravy vulgar in the kitchen, and only genteel when 
upon the table, in company with dunces and lame 
ducks ? Can that be low and unclean whose prod- 
ucts grace our dining-rooms and parlors ? 

The manufactures of the kitchen call for the 
highest talents of the household, and are of a more 
complicated nature and higher rank than those 



130 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

by which the head of the estabhshment perhaps gets 
his living. Shall the gentlewoman of the drawing- 
room believe herself degraded by a little attention 
to a daily manufacture in the kitchen which is equal 
or superior to that business by which her husband 
supports her and his family ? 

Just reflect on what that culinary manufacture 
is ; you will then attain some adequate notion of its 
dignity ; its importance and necessity are every- 
where conceded. It combines several distinct arts or 
trades ; that, for instance, of the confectioner, baker, 
and pastry-cook, together with a competent knowl- 
edge of chemistry, horticulture, agriculture, and 
natural history. We shall say nothing now of anat- 
omy and conic sections required in the process of 
carving. "With all these arts and sciences, the lady- 
cook should be well acquainted, in connection with 
as fine an instinct and natural taste as would qualify 
her for writing or criticizing a poem or painting. 
Cookery a vulgar thing, to be consigned to menials 
without acquired education or natural genius ! It 
is preposterous ! 

This country will never be what it ought — nei- 
ther its constitution, nor that of its inhabitants pre- 
served — without a more competent kitchen-cabinet 
than now exists. Such a body is now, as it has 
always been, as essential to the general welfare as 
the cabinet of the parlor. The finest talents, both 



COOKS AND COOKERY. 131 

of men and women, have been called into requisition 
by the demands of cooking and the kitchen. We 
are not so well acquainted as we ought to be, and 
wish we were, with the illustrious authors on this 
noble science. Mrs. Glass, Miss Leslie, Dr. Kich- 
ener, Monsieur Soyer, and Careme, are some of 
them. It is the noblest of the arts, and familiarity 
with its laboratories is an honor, not a disgrace, to 
any woman. 

Cookery is the distinguishing characteristic and 
glory of our race. No animal but man possesses 
cooks. Take them away, and what have we left 
— but a munching creature of raw turnips and 
clams ! The Republic would soon crumble into 
ruins if deprived of this its principal support, just 
as a house would tumble over if the kitchen were 
taken away. Your third, fourth, and fifth stories 
are excellent in their way ; but the first floor is 
the main stay, after all is said and done. 

If the vocation is thus useful and indeed neces- 
sary, it ought to be practised with judgment, dis- 
cretion, and an eye to health. More lives are lost 
through bad cookery than by the cholera. When 
they are not actually sacrificed outright by igno- 
rance, they are shortened and rendered uncomfort- 
able while they last. A good cook and the doctor 
cannot flourish together in the same house ; one 
will certainly expel the other. If you want to en- 



132 



AUTUMN LEAVES. 



joy good health, you need not throw physic to the 
dogs ; but give them all badly cooked provisions : 
the physic will follow of course. With an accom- 
plished wife and cook, united in one, a man will live 
out all his days, and sleep soundly o' nights. He 
has found the genuine and only elixir. 






THE EGOTIST. 

ID you ever note tlie man whose stand- 
point for viewing every question was him- 
self? — " That ralh'oad is the worst for its 
management in the country. The persons about it 
are the most Impudent and ungentlemanly." So 
he says. Now, what is all this tirade for ? Why, 
on looking Into the matter, — and to do so, little 
else is necessary than to hear the angry individual 
himself talk, — we say, that, after all, it Is found 
that the man once thought he was hot treated with 
sufficient deference by one of the conductors. That 
is the flimsy foundation for his judgment, and the 
provoker of his unwearied malediction. 

Just stop a moment and observe his conversa- 
tion. He speaks well of few persons who are not 
his toadies ; and, though his opinions are bottomed 
on the most frail and one-sided notions, as the speci- 
men given shows, yet he is just as obstinate In his 
persistence as if they were grounded on a demon- 
stration of Euclid. As often happens, the amount 
of his prejudice is in exact proportion to the narrow- 
ness of his vision. 



134 A UTUMN LEA VES. 

This man is incapable of deciding upon matters 
agreeably to principles belonging to each distinctly 
and appropriately. If he differs from another on 
the prohibitory law, thereupon he contracts a dis- 
gust at his opponent, and tries him on other sub- 
jects, as if they were somehow or other connected 
with the liquor-question. The reason is, he is so 
egotistical and opinionated as to be blind to any view 
of a subject which he has not taken himself. It is 
the word I, — the least one in the language, but 
yet so large as to shut out almost every other when 
placed beside it, — it is this word, so contemptible 
frequently in reality, yet so omnipotent with the 
selfish, that causes multitudes of small men to be- 
lieve, or to act as if they believed themselves to be 
the nucleus or centre of the universe. Number 
One is a great number, and is represented by the 
letter I. These Ones are so numerous as to be 
reckoned by thousands. 

There was an individual of this description who 
made up his mind that mutton-chop is the greatest 
dish there is, especially for breakfast. On this he 
continually fed, till he thought, as he was very apt 
to do, that his muttons ought to be everybody's 
muttons. One morning, he invited a young lady 
next him to take a piece, which she civilly declined. 
Thereupon he remarked, in a very severe tone, that 
he should not have made the offer had he not known 



THE EGOTIST. 135 

that it was the fittest thing for her, which she ought 
to take, and that he was not in the habit of recom- 
mending: what was not the best. Here were im- 
pudence and rudeness with a witness ; yet nobody 
was in the habit so much as he of talking of the 
gentleman., and branding others with being no 
gentlemen, — his favorite phrase. His insolent 
language hurt the lady's feelings, and she wept, with 
suppressed anger however, it should be said. The 
trouble with this mistaken man is, that he has al- 
ways one eye fixed admiringly on himself, while 
his other eye is — also paying homage to the same 
dear object. Could he, though loving chops ex- 
travagantly, not keep them to himself? More es- 
pecially, whatever he might think proper to do with 
mutton chops, the fellow ought to have spared the 
lady from being insulted with his oivn. 

Dogmatism, indeed, is the essence of such a 
character. Everything is considered as it touches 
him. Pleasure is not pleasant, unless he enjoys 
it ; virtue is hardly virtuous, if it does not belong 
to his list of excellencies. Light itself is purer to 
him when refracted by his particular atmosphere, 
and nothing is exactly as it ought to be, till it is 
crushed or expanded into his standard. When an- 
other indulges in something, it is either vulgar or 
vicious. If he allows himself in the same, it is an 
elegant freedom or an eccentric taste, that accom- 



136 



AUTUMN LEAVES, 



panles genius. He cannot place himself in another 
man's shoes, if he should die. To this there is one 
exception : he stepped with pleasure into the old 
shoes of a rich relation, who deceased and left him 
a fortune. 




EFFECT OF THE INCREASE OF GOLD. 

[written in 1853.] 




HAT are called laws in political economy 
are very different from those which pass 
under the same name in natural science, — 
astronomy, for example. These are so invariable 
and exact, that mathematics can deal with them as 
absolute certainties. Not so with those which are 
said to govern the growth of our population, for 
instance, or the effect of the addition of the gold 
products of the mines of California and Australia to 
the quantity of that metal already in existence. A 
law of rise in values has, however, been attempted 
to be deduced from the comparison of prices at 
various periods before and since the discovery of 
the Mexican mines, about the year 1500. It is as- 
sumed that the stock of the precious metals then 
in the world was a hundred and fifty millions of 
dollars. By the opening of those mines, it is com- 
puted that at the end of that century five times the 
original stock, or 750,000,000 dollars, had been 
added. In the next century, ending in the year 
1700, an equal sum is supposed to have been con- 



138 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

tributed to the circulation, making the amount of 
the precious metals in possession of mankind to be 
fifteen hundred millions. In one hundred and fifty 
years more, that is, in 1850, this sum, by the opera- 
tion of the American mines, had been augmented, 
according to a common estimate, to three thousand 
millions of dollars ; a few have placed it lower, and 
several, we think, considerably higher. But precise 
accuracy in the amount is not the point with us at 
present. 

Now, it has been thought that there is a fixed 
proportion between these regular increments in the 
amount of the precious metals and the values of 
commodities and land. Thus, according to this 
theory, if there are now three thousand millions of 
dollars in use, property must be twenty times as 
valuable as it was at the discovery of America, three 
and a half centuries ago, because the gold and silver 
now in the world bears that proportion to what it 
then possessed. ' 

But if the foregoing statements have any good 
approximation to correctness, no such law as has 
been supposed can possibly exist. For there has 
been no such change in prices. The price of wheat 
has been said by Smith and others to be the best 
standard for comparing the prices of all commodities 
at different times. Yet the discovery of the mines 
in America had no considerable effect on the prices 



EFFECT OF THE INCREASE OF GOLD. 139 

of things in England for more than seventy years. 
It was not till after 1570 that a marked alteration 
was noticed, and that was twenty years after even 
the rich mines of Potosi were discovered. From 
1570 to 1640, silver sunk in value, so that it took 
from six to eight ounces to buy a quarter of wheat, 
which might have been had before for two. Between 
1630 and 1640, the effect of the discovery of the 
mines appears to have been completed, and the value 
of that metal seems never to have sunk lower in 
proportion to corn than it did about that time. 
Afterwards and during the last century, it con- 
tinued to rise. 

What, then, becomes of a law which claims to 
regulate the values of all commodities by the scarcity 
or abundance of specie ? — one which has excited 
the apprehensions of many, lest the abundance of 
Californian and Australian gold should almost have 
the operation of producing such a repudiation of its 
f alue as to make it by and by but a little better than 
a sort of " old tenor " of continental memory. The 
history of the discovery of the mines about the year 
1500, and of its effects since, will allay all fears on 
the score of the immense appreciation of all descrip- 
tions of property. 

In the first place, assuming the present quantity 
of specie to be three thousand millions, the annual 
addition, even from the present prolific sources, is 



140 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

but a small percentage on the whole. But then its 
depreciation, which we see must at any rate be very 
gradual, if there were no counteracting cause, is 
checked and almost entirely counterbalanced by a 
demand fully equal to this supply, bountiful as it is. 
While men feel its stimulating force in the increas- 
ing pulsations of business, the value of money can- 
not fall ; indeed, a scarcity is rather to be appre- 
hended from the rapidly growing demand. It may 
well be feared that the new uses found for it will 
very much outrun the imports from the mines. 

When the wealth of a country increases, and the 
annual produce of its labor becomes greater, a greater 
quantity of coin becomes necessary to circulate a 
greater quantity of commodities. If we were a 
stationary people, and did not enlarge our industry 
and exchanges, while cargoes of gold were pouring 
in upon us, the effect would be widely different. 
But our enterprise, on the contrary, still shoots 
ahead even of our multiplied resources ; and the 
fresh additions of the latter are, after all, inadequate to 
the execution of our grasping plans. Plate, pictures, 
statues, sumptuous furniture, luxurious houses, ex- 
pensive jewelry, rich wardrobes, wines of fabulous 
age and flavor, equipages, and the like extravagance, 
will drink up the gold dust like so many sponges ; 
and if there is any of it left, some of us will gild 
our houses with it as the Chinese do their pagodas. 



EFFECT OF THE INCREASE OF GOLD. 141 

For ages, other countries contributed gold and silver 
to that rich empire ; but they did not lose their 
value, for the consumption was in proportion to their 
receipts. The very increase of the inhabitants of 
the civilized world demands annually a large fresh 
supply of coin to keep the stock of circulation good 
in the hands of every individual. 

Beside, the annual contributions, amounting from 
a hundred to a hundred and thirty millions, more 
or less, will probably be stationary at about that 
figure, but by no means larger, while the whole 
amount in circulation is of course growing greater ; 
thus diminishing the percentage of the increase of 
every year, till it comes to be a fraction not to be 
appreciated. But this percentage ought, in fact, as 
has been said, to be reckoned, not only on the specie 
used for the medium of exchange, but on everything 
else which is taken as money and goes to swell its 
amount, such as bank-notes, bills of exchange, and 
other negotiable paper. How soon some of these 
may be withdrawn from fulfilling the functions of 
coin, we do not know. What some administration 
through the country may attempt, no one can tell. 
Should bank-note circulation be forbidden in obedi- 
ence to a delusive notion popular in some learned 
financial quarters, there will be a mighty vacuum 
created, which it will take California some time to 
supply. 



142 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

On the whole, if any one Is nervous on the pros- 
pect of a plethora of gold, we invite him to dismiss 
his fears. We assure him there is no present danger; 
and if he does not live longer than Methusalah, we 
believe it will not come till he also shall be gathered 
to his fathers. There is also a moral as well as a 
consolation : do not invest too deeply in land or 
anything else with the expectation of reaping an im- 
mense fortune from its rise in consequence of a fall 
in the value of gold. The present values of land 
and rent are evidently speculative. The actual 
abundance of the precious metals has not produced 
them, but the crazy cry of anticipated inundation, 
which, after all, will never reach us. Your specu- 
lator has a nimble fancy. 





THE INTERCEPTED LETTER. 

A GENTLEMAN slts in his gay saloon, 

In his easy arm-chair, 
And probably would be quite alone, 

Were a lady not there. 

Why standeth that daughter, tearing a rose ? 

Why so anxious looks her hound ? 
How angrily, too, that father throws 

Uneasy glances round ! 

He is chiding, O fie ! his pretty child, 

For a letter of young love ; 
She does n't look sorry, that maiden mild, 
the sweet dove ! 

The father is preaching of being discreet, 

And all that sort of thing, 
And holding aloft th' intercepted sheet, 

As if it concealed a sting. 

Then he fumes and frets till his face grows red, 

But she only picks the rose. 
And demurely holds down her pretty head, 

While her dog holds up his nose. 



144 



AUTUMN LEAVES. 



The fatherly lecture is quite a bore, 

As such things always are ; 
So she makes up her mind — not, to sin any more 

But to keep it from dear papa. 





^ 



THEY WOULD BE YOUNG LADIES AND 
GENTLEMEN. 

|EOPLE, as appears from communications of 
correspondents and otherwise, are just now 
thinking a good deal of the training of the 
young. We have been doing the same thing, and 
wdll now relate, as applicable to the subject, what 
we chanced to hear one day, and shall entitle it — 

THEY WOULD BE YOUNG LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. 

" Where 's your father, Margaret ? " 

"I suppose he 's in the shop, sir." 

" Always hammering away, summer and winter, 
from morning till night ? " 

" Yes, sir ; father is very industrious ; I really be- 
lieve he works because he loves it." 

" And where 's your mother, Margaret ? " 

" She is in the kitchen, sir ; mother does so like 
to cook, and wash, and sweep." 

" That you and your sister Harriet rarely have 
a chance at the griddle or the broom, it is likely." 

" Oh, never, sir. We take care of the parlor, 
which, but for us, would have no tenant." 

10 



146 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

" You and your sister are, theu, my dear, your 
parents' lilies of the parlor, who neither sew nor 
spin ; but continue to be arrayed as beautifully as 
Solomon, by the sewing and spinning of others." 

" Sir ? " 

" And your brother Henry, does he blow the bel- 
lows, or play second hammer to your father ? " 

" Oh dear, no, sir ; he never works ; he rides or 
promenades, goes to the theatre, and visits the 
ladies. And we go to the play, receive the gen- 
tlemen, and take a drive, or walk." 

" And what do you do the rest of the time, for 
I suppose there is a little left? " 

" We are getting ready, sir." 

" This really seems a very nice and pleasant ar- 
rangement — to three of you, at least. Doubtless 
it is all agreeable to your parents ! They like their 
end of the yoke, do they not ? " 

"What,^sir?" 

" Your father and mother like the arrangement 
which you speak of, — they are content to take 
their dividends of life in work? They prefer to 
labor themselves, and don't seem to mind if other 
people are always idle or not ? " 

■" Oh dear, no. You can't imagine how proud 
they are of being busy. They would not be doing 
nothing if they could, I really believe. Father was 
unwell a week some time ago, and idleness seemed 



YOUNG LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. 147 

to weigh upon him as much as his disease. He was 
glad enough to be active again once more, I assure 

you." 

" Perhaps his unremitting labor is necessary to 
enable him to maintain his family? " 

" Why, perhaps it may be. I 'm sure I don't 
know." 

" In that case, it is possible that when his income 
is stopped by illness, he may not be entirely easy 
in his mind; his prospects may not be clear and 
pleasant." 

" I don't know how that matter may be, sir." 

" But, of course, if anything should happen to 
prevent your father from providing, there is your 
brother, and he might " — 

" Ha, ha ! What, brother Henry ? He can't 
split a stick to kindle the fire with, and does not 
know how to keep it going after it is made, unless 
it is to let it go out. Brother would rather have 
both hands chopped off than see them spoiled with 
work. He would die before he would let Chris- 
topher Cherrywit or Tom Tweezer know that he 
ever touched hammer or spade. And as for his 
sister and me, you don't imagine, I hope " — 

" Not at all ; there is not the least need of your 
doing anything, I see." 

" That is it, sir. The old folks would not be 
easy without labor ; they have never known what 



148 AUTmiN LEAVES. 

it is to rest and be amused, and we are ignorant 
of anything else. So we are both suited. Work 
seems to be their only delight ; and it is lucky for 
us that it is so. Don 't you think so yourself, sir ? " 

We did not hear the reply, and this heartless 
dialogue, of which we had accidentally overheard 
so much, was cut short suddenly at this point. 
But we got the main idea of a certain class of 
worthless youth, who make some figure in the 
world in their showy outside-surface way, — which 
is that people are like land under the old theory of 
farming. It must be smartly worked one year and 
lie fallow the next at least. The notion of many 
young folks now appears from this conversation to 
be, that one generation, namely the one now upon 
the stage and passing off, must do all their own 
work and that of the rising one into the bargain. 
The latter represents the fallow year. What is to 
become of their children ? Perhaps the passing 
generation's tillage may suffice for two. At any 
rate, they will not trouble themselves about the 
matter. They trusted to luck and the labor of 
others themselves; their offspring must do the 
same. The art of slipping easily through life is, to 
avoid the rough places and shirk its difficulties. 
They can sleep, and eat, and dress. There will 
always be careful people about, who don't seem to 



YOUNG LADIES AND GENTLEMEN 149 

mind, but absolutely to relish trouble ; who would 
rather work than not. These will see that the 
doors are locked, that the fire does not go out when 
the rest of the household does, and that the stock- 
ings are mended, if nothing else is. 

There is an enormously great fault somewhere, 
or these young and vigorous parasites would not be 
seen sticking to the old bark of past generations. 
Where is it ? Is it in parents ? have they eaten 
sour grapes ? If they have, they have set their own 
teeth on edge, and not their children's. If exemp- 
tion from labor is a privilege, children are gainers 
from parental tenderness and indiscretion. 

Parents have doubtless eaten largely of the finiit 
of that tree of knowledge, which has cheated them 
into the belief that work, so honorable in the last 
century, confers disgrace in this, and therefore is fit 
only for the old. The rising generation, too much 
like the tide, which falls as well as rises, yields will- 
ingly to this theory of work, if it did not invent or 
import it. Sons and daughters are not ashamed to 
eat the bread of idleness, earned by the failing 
muscles of their parents. In reality, they ought in 
justice to change places. Young people should 
bear the heat and burden of the day, that the father 
may repose in the shade, and the matron sit by the 
hearth-stone to receive the guests. But this state 
of things is now quite reversed. The old man 



150 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

works all day to bring home something to his fam- 
ily, while his boy toils all night to spend it. The 
mother moves about the house intent upon domestic 
cares, while the vigorous daughter, almost invisi- 
ble in silk and lace, occupies her seat in the parlor. 
The first thing that this young lady ought to do is 
" to rise up and call her mother blessed," and do 
what she can to make her so. 




LARGE NOSES. 



HRENOLOGISTS make great account of 
the nose. If any one is disposed to set 
them down as dreamers, then we will cite 
Napoleon and other good judges, who thought very 
highly of this member, as a prominent mark of 
character. By them a large nose is considered an 
almost never-failing indication of strong will. One 
can see this every day exemplified on very common 
occasions. The first time you have to cross a ferry, 
take the trouble to notice who first rush out from it 
to jump ashore. They are all big-nosed people to a 
man ! You need not take anybody's word for this, 
but examine for yourself. 

It was not for nothing that a conquering nation 
of antiquity had Roman noses. No timid people 
they, who did not know their own minds. They 
knew them very well, and made the rest of the 
world acquainted with them too. Well-developed 
noses do not indicate predominance of imagination. 
The Romans were not distinguished for this faculty. 
But they appear, in some way or other, connected 



152 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

with taking the lead in practical matters. They go 
before, and clear the way, where organs of less 
size and strength would fail to penetrate and open a 
passage. They go ahead at fights and fires, and are 
foremost in crowds, in riots, and daring undertak- 
ings ; sometimes getting the whole body into trouble ; 
but then the first to lead the way to an escape. We 
see them pointing the way to glory in the warrior 
and hero, in Washington and Wellington ; and, with 
never-failing forecast, guiding the sagacity of states- 
men, the Burleighs of the cabinet. Cases there 
are, no doubt, where they have tempted men too 
far, as for instance, John Tyler into Texas, and Sam 
Patch overboard. But even in those uncommon 
instances, other noses, almost as long, have helped 
them out again. Taylor and Scott, with highly 
respectable endowments in this particular, came to 
the rescue of their big-nosed brother, and Sam 
Patch's ultimate fate itself is by no means an ex- 
ception. His nose had brought that recklessly ad- 
venturous man to the surface many a time and oft, 
and given him breath ; till at last, tired of being 
thrust always forward in such scrapes, it left him 
in the lurch. 

We do not know if it has ever been remarked 
that the Hebrew nation owe their uncommon excel- 
lence in music to this portion of their physics, rather 
than to their ears. It is customary, we are aware, 



LARGE NOSES. 153 

to speak of an ear for tune, an ear for time, &c., but 
we would suggest with deference, whether it would 
not be more correct to say, a nose for harmony and 
song. Certain it is, that the descendants of Jubal 
and Asaph are among the chief musicians of this 
day, as the illustrious characters we have mentioned 
were of theirs ; and they are all remarkably endowed 
with the nasal organ. Evidently, the nose was not 
placed in such proximity with the instruments of 
vocal sound for nothing ! And it is not only an 
index of musical capacity in its proprietor, but an 
excellent musician of itself. 

But we have been in the habit of looking on this 
member as holding a higher office still than a 
prompter of the will, or trumpet for the voice. 
There is abundant reason to believe that it offici- 
ates as a rudder to the mind, and some notice that 
one who is making up his judgment, lays his fore- 
finger for direction on this organ. Where judg- 
ment is predominant, there we are almost sure to 
find a nose of excellent symmetry and dimensions. 
There are those who scan the forehead and other 
portions of the skull to discover this controlling 
faculty ; but we measure, on the contrary, the pro- 
montory between the cheeks, and pronounce our 
verdict on the character according to the result. 
Look then through the courts ; we are not willing to 
go lower than the Common Pleas, and should not 



154 A UTUMN LEA VES. 

indeed incline to rest the question there ; but ascend 
to the higher judicial seats of the several States and 
of the Union, and, our word for it, you will see such 
a collection of noses as will fully reveal the reason 
of the acknowledged eminence of the judges of 
America. 

We happened the other day to be examining 
some antique statues that have lately come to light. 
Among them were those of two great men, re- 
nowned in all ages for wisdom and penetration. 
They were the busts of Tacitus and Seneca. Both 
these sagacious persons, it appears, were remarkable 
for nose ! 

Having spoken of a few of the excellencies of 
this distinguished member, it may be expected that 
we should proceed to point out some of its attendant 
inconveniences, — such as its liability to be pulled, 
and others. But for this invidious office we have 
little relish. Beside, in our opinion, many of them 
are more fanciful than real. The one just men- 
tioned, for example, is entirely without foundation. 
Such a nose, as we have honored with the epithet 
of large, has too much good sense and judgment to 
get into a situation where any one would wish or 
dare to wring it. No, no. It is your snub-nose 
that has now and then been taken between the 
thumb and finger to atone for the malversations 
of its master. Why, such a desecration of a nasal 



LARGE NOSES. 155 

organ of judicious dimensions, it would be beyond 
the power of any ordinary digits to perpetrate, even 
if they had the courage. 

This noble feature has, however, been condemned 
to indignity and suffering from human hands. Not 
content with the stuffing and stifling it with the 
most villanous of noxious weeds, men call upon this 
single innocent member to atone for the sins of all 
the other parts of the body. It is obliged to suffer 
in public for the most disgraceful of secret vices. 
Beside, though it never touches a drop itself, it car- 
ries about into eveiy company the beastly tokens 
of the drunkard. So true it is, that, let one mem- 
ber of society lead ever so blameless a hfe, he must 
expect to suffer with, and oftentimes for, the rest. 




SELF-MADE MEN. 

E are heartily tired of this hackneyed phrase, 
which, after all, means nothing in particu- 
lar. What a remarkable man is Mr. John 
Smith ! and he is a self-made man too ! Stop, 
friend ! All men are self-made, or else not made 
at all — only half finished, as multitudes of such 
folks are. Calhoun and Clay and Webster were 
all self-made men ; yet two of them went to college, 
and the other went behind the counter. Now it is 
perfectly well known to those who have spent four 
years within the walls of a college, which some 
make such a noise about on purpose to aw^aken 
jealousy, that everything there depends upon one's 
own almost unaided effort. The same devotion to 
individual culture exhibited outside those walls, 
will be followed by the same advancement and suc- 
cess with the great superadded advantage of being 
then styled a self-made man. This distinction is 
unsound, but it is one which the individual thus 
facetiously styled uneducated^ because he has not 
earned a degree, has no occasion to regret. He 



SELF-MADE MEN, 15T 

has been an immense gainer by his very depriva- 
tions, since he is called the architect of his fortune ; 
though he is no more so than others to whom that 
credit is denied. 

Great talents have undoubtedly often lain for- 
ever buried in obscurity. To quote from a poem 
which has touched all hearts, and from which the 
arrows of small critics have ever fallen harmless, — 

" Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; 
Full many a flower is born to blush imseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 

But wdiere intellectual flowers have been brought 
to light, thrown off the load of poverty that kept 
them down, and had an opportunity to expand, 
they have done so, whether found in a workshop or 
in an academic hall. A college is not, as those 
who have not tried it think, a hot-bed that will 
turn a cabbage-plant into a cauliflower. A carpen- 
ter's bench or an accountant's desk can work such 
a miracle just as well as the wooden seats of the 
recitation-room. 

After all, self-culture is the only kind of educa- 
tion which will ever avail. No matter what school 
or academy may have fed his early year with 
knowledge, — no matter what Harvard or Yale 
may have nourished his mature mind, — no matter 
what leaned lecturers may have, at least in theory, 
filled up every chink and cranny of his brain with 



158 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

science, and conveyed him around the circle of 
human knowledge, till he becomes dizzy with the 
journey, — still, after all is done, the man must fall 
back upon himself, cultivate and rely on his own 
resources, grapple with difficulties alone, and ac- 
cumulate a capital of his own by his own solitary 
exertions. But this is being self-made, as much as 
a merchant or mechanic is who has risen to opu- 
lence and distinction. He too has had the benefit 
of the training of apprenticeship. Still neither ap- 
prenticeship to a merchant, a mechanic, or a college, 
will insure success and eminence. 

A failure in these arises sometimes from want of 
inclination, more frequently perhaps from deficiency 
of talents. The last is a very common cause of 
failure, well understood ; but we are convinced that 
the former happens oftener than is generally sus- 
pected. Some of the finest intellects — we believe 
the experience of many who read this will confirm 
the remark — have little or no relish for the ordi- 
nary objects of ambition. In their half philosophic, 
half religious contemplations they pronounce the 
scramble for power and office vulgar, not worth an 
effort, and, when obtained, amounting in reality to 
nothing better than a voluntary assumption of hard 
work for the benefit of others. This, as they view 
it, may in conscience be sometimes incumbent on a 
man, and therefore not always to be shunned, but 



SELF-MADE MEN. 159 

certainly has nothing so inviting as to be sought 
for by a person in his senses. To men of this or- 
ganization, which is not so very rare, a voluntary 
lingering and persistence in the public service, how- 
ever honorable it may be, seems very much like 
voluntarily becoming a plantation - slave. The 
petty honor seems to make all the difference ; and 
what that amounts to, honest Jack Falstaff told 
us long ago. 

The subject would not be complete unless it 
should be honestly remarked that self-made men 
are very often left unfinished, as if they had been 
made by Nature's journeymen, and not made well. 
Such imperfect specimens will pass in the tap-room, 
perhaps in the parlor, but will sink to a low level at 
the bar or in the Senate chamber. Your Colonel 
Crocketts are no doubt useful in their proper longi- 
tude and generation, but are as disqualified for many 
positions as Leatherstocking would be for the post 
of an alderman. They are all bad models for 
American youth, who may err in being too fine, but 
never in being too finished, and among whose nu-' 
merous accomplishments completeness of attainments 
is seldom to be reckoned. 



HALL-STOVE AND BROKEN PANE. 




N the hall are a stove and a window. The 
former is kept full of glowing coal ; in the 
latter a pane is broken out, and it has been 
left unmended throughout the whole winter. What 
a wise economy is here presented ! Yet it is of a 
piece with many a man's and many a woman's con- 
duct during life. Good principles and habits may 
be conspicuous ; but bad ones are suffered to go un- 
corrected. Virtues may abound, but so does vice ; 
weeds grow apace as well as wheat, and it is fre- 
quently a question which of them will get the mas- 
tery. Sometimes the hrohen pane in the hall lets in 
more air than the stove can warm. 

And one fact it is important to remark. Vice 
seems always perfectly able to take care of itself, 
while good principles need cultivation and care to 
maintain or multiply them. The cold wind will come 
in at the broken pane of itself without anybody's 
attention. But labor and vigilance are required 
to keep up a fire in the stove. The draught of 
the one is constant and perpetual, night and day, 
whether any one minds it or not. On the other 



HALI^STOVE AND BROKEN PANE. 161 

hand, the stove-fire is apt to wane, and even go out, 
is almost sure to do so in the night, and needs in- 
cessant replenishing to enable it to maintain an 
equipoise to the blast from the window. Error, 
wrong, and vice are rushing in upon us in a cease- 
less stream, whether we will or not ; the equilibrium 
of goodness and the right is always in danger of 
being overcome. Indeed, this is pretty sure to be 
the issue, unless those evils shall be encountered by 
such braveiy and stability of principle and good 
habits as shall oppose a barrier equal in strength 
and endurance to the assaulting forces. 

The Stove and Broken Pane may be met with in 
various departments of life. When we see a man 
wasting ten thousand a year, while his business 
yields a profit of five only, the open pane and neg- 
lected hall-stove reappear to view. Another man 
talks loudly of temperance. It is well ; but when 
he spoils his precepts by hard drinking, or opposes 
measures which can only really produce the spread 
of temperance, it puts us in mind of the broken 
window, which nullified all the good that the entry- 
stove could do. There is a multitude of people 
possessing amiable and valuable traits of character, 
but so tangled up are they with disagreeable habits 
and propensities, as to render them objects on the 
whole which one should avoid, as he would a bee 
who has honey at one end, but a sting at the other, 
u 





GREAT MEN. 

T is not easy to be a great man, any more 
than a great capitalist ; but when once be- 
come great, it is not difficult to become still 
greater as well as richer. Men will lend their wills 
and money for you to sway and trade on. Every- 
thing and every opportunity combines to favor your 
increased influence and exaltation. Some men are 
great only because their cause is so. There is a 
moment at the turning of the tide when all is quiet 
and level around, and nothing indicates the move- 
ment of the waves in any particular direction. 
The prestige of greatness has not yet been attained. 
How small the apparent impulse of the tide at first ! 
But when the preponderance in favor of the cur- 
rent has been established, how all the surrounding 
waves, as with one consent, tender their assistance, 
and rush on to bear him who rides upon the mighty 
current onward to his high destiny. 

There is a calm in the atmosphere when scarce a 
breath blows one way or the other. Presently a 
slight motion of the air is just perceptible, and then 



GREAT MEN. 163 

all the winds of heaven seem to unite to send the 
blast of the hurricane along. Niagara itself was 
perhaps a rivulet no bigger than a pipe-stem once. 
When that had gained a passage, others innumer- 
able, ambitious to follow their leader, pressed it on- 
ward, and increased its bulk, till it swelled into 
the river St. Lawrence, and attained a greatness, 
due not to one stream alone, but to a combination 
of many nearly equal. The Mississippi represents 
the way in which great men sometimes usurp all 
the credit, while some of it, and not unfrequently 
the greater part, belongs rightfully to others. If 
justice were done all parties, the Missouri would be 
more heard of, and the Mississippi less ; and many a 
general of an army, and chief of a party, would be 
cut down a head shorter, to put it on the shoulders 
of some of those able followers on which they rode 
into power and fame. 

Men fall down and worship human greatness, 
which is as much their own manufacture as Baal, or 
the Serpent in the Wilderness. In the case of men 
who are really great, nobody is more astonished 
than themselves at the factitious importance given 
them by an idolatrous public. They know a little 
more, and can do a little better than most of their 
worshippers around ; and for this they, to their own 
surprise, are treated with sacrifices but little inferior 
to those offered to a heathen idol. The fact is that 
despotism seems a natural fruit of the human state. 



164 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

Mankind voluntarily manufacture tyrants. These 
do not make themselves any more than poets. We 
must have somebody or thing to worship, and if we 
cannot find a king or queen to be the object of our 
stupid admiration, we will confer it on some general, 
orator, or demagogue, which many confound with 
demigod. When we have got the halter of a mas- 
ter round our necks, we feel easy, for we know then 
which way to go ; and that 's just as we are pulled. 
How fortunate it is that one man cannot look into 
the brains of another ; if he could, adieu to popu- 
larity and fame for superhuman qualities. How 
lucky one cannot look into another's heart; if he 
could, where then would be the confidence and sub- 
serviency of a party underling and tool ? Well, there 
have been great men ; but not so personally grand 
as poets and chroniclers have made them in order 
to comply with the exigency of rhyme and the in- 
terest of history. There have been good men, but 
not all of them so good but that others could equal 
them if they had a mind to try it. The memory is 
the most good-natured of the faculties, and kindly 
becomes a sieve to the defects, and a mirror to the 
shining qualities of the great and good who have 
preceded us. As to the hidden structure of men's 
minds, the differences are probably about the same 
as in the exterior shapes and dimensions of their 
bodies ; so that there are few giants and no demi- 
gods on earth. 





POST-PRANDIUM ELOQUENCE. 

NE of the oldest and most noted manufac- 
turers of brass clocks in the country be- 
fore his time they were made of wood — 
told us, that, sixty years ago, he managed by one 
artifice or another to keep his name perpetually 
before the public in the newspapers of that day, 
few and diminutive as they were. Sometimes he 
added a new cog, or wheel or two, or altered the 
arrangement of the old ones ; sometimes the out- 
side case underwent a supposed improvement. 
Now, the face was painted in a very striking man- 
ner, and again, it was an added hammer, that was 
made to strike. It was made to run eight days, 
fifteen, or thirty-one, (they make them go a life- 
time now,) or only eight-and-t wen ty hours. No 
matter what the change, however slight, and often 
when there was none at all, the event must be duly 
chronicled in the weekly print. Such was his sa- 
gacity ; and it was rewarded with money and rep- 
utation, and he became the most celebrated clock- 
maker in the land. Yet all the time, scarce a step 



166 A UTUMN LEA VES. 

was taken in the invention of a new principle, or 
even the improvement of an old one. 

The New-England clock-maker is dead now, or 
he would have at this time competitors for notoriety, 
who would be an even match for him. What do 
you suppose the reason is that all the societies, of 
which there are some hundreds in the city of New 
York, take care to celebrate their anniversaries in 
public ? It is the desire of their officers to get their 
names into the public papers, and of two or three 
of the members to be smuggled in also with their 
well-conned imi^romptu speeches, made at the accom- 
panying dinners. Some men attend public dinners 
to put something into their mouths ; others, to let 
something out. We know two men, one of whom 
never eats on those occasions, because chicken and 
oysters weigh down and cloud his wit, and prevent 
his shining ; the other never drinks, for he says 
wine fevers his throat and makes his celebrated 
songs husky. Thus the itch to be conspicuous is 
favorable to the virtues, and in order to be flippant, 
one must give up flip. It is a common opinion 
that the love of talk, and especially the desire to 
see it in the newspapers the next morning, is the 
secret but genuine cause of the practice of public 
dinner-giving. Some men lecture ; others get 
elected to legislatures ; individuals are said to 
commit assaults and batteries, or kick up a row in 



POST-PRANDIUM ELOQUENCE. 167 

theatres and ball-rooms ; while others figure as pro- 
fessional, dinner, hotel, historical-society, and steam- 
boat orators, — all to gratify a natural, and therefore 
pardonable, ambition to appear in print. 

The public must not be too hard with persons 
thus powerfully tempted. From considerable obser- 
vation, there seems no reason to doubt that the 
ambition to be the subject of a paragraph is one of 
the most irresistible temptations of modern times. 
For the want of it, among the ancients, smart men 
stirred up wars, and grew into renowned generals, 
or else engaged in schemes to overturn the liberties 
of their country, or cut the throats of its tyrants. 
The modern vent for a great spirit is pacific. The 
types are a satisfactory reward for all his aspirations. 
Accordingly, in order to obtain their favor, one way 
is to trump up a sham discussion in the papers ; 
another, to pick up some foreigner, and make 
speeches at him for awhile ; and some have even 
been known to make a donation to a historical soci- 
ety of smoky or mouldy volumes, which had been 
encumbering the garret for a generation. These 
and similar methods are all worth trying ; but they 
will not bear a comparison with the success of the 
table or impromptu orator. There is nothing the 
press is so eager and delighted to pick up and pre- 
serve as what falls from a speaker's tongue, and 
post-prandium eloquence is always of the very best 



168 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

quality, catching a flavor, no doubt, not from Hel- 
icon, bat the distillery. Nowhere does patriotic fire, 
or love of woman, or the press, glow more intensely. 
These are the standing themes, enlarged on some- 
times till the speakers ai*e compelled to sit. The 
sentiment, pro aris et focis — or, as translated by 
the cockney, our arts and halters — will never 
cease to have a relish at anniversary feasts as long 
as men shall honor the one, or deserve the other. 

This remarkable disposition to be distinguished as 
speakers lessens the wish to be recognized as actors. 
Your speakers and your actors are not often the 
same persons. Great barkers do not bite. Per- 
ceiving this, the American people have a practice of 
sending to Congress delegates principally eminent 
for their powers of protracted speech. Being un- 
friendly to over-much legislation, they take good 
care to select such excellent orators for their rep- 
resentatives and senators as will be pretty certain 
to spend the time in talking, so that the Republic 
will be likely to receive no harm. It is certainly 
much to the credit of this faculty and practice that 
it confers such reputation upon the possessor, at 
the same time that it does no injury to any one. 
Who can quarrel with that which does no harm, 
while it tickles the vanity of so many who would 
on the other hand be miserable if they could not 
talk, and at the same time be talked of? Talk, 



POST-PRANDWM ELOQUENCE. 169 

talk, talk, is the conservative element in our sys- 
tem, the true brake, breeching, or holdback in the 
body politic. If the honorable senator could not 
vent himself in speeches, he might do some mis- 
chief; takeaway these hindering buckles and straps, 
and away the car of state might rush down-hill into 
the gulf — of Mexico, or some other as bad. It is 
better to let people, especially those in places of 
dangerous authority, enjoy the full play of one un- 
easy member, than, by curbing it, turn the whole of 
the entire man to a terribly serious action. Men 
must have some place where they can be looked at, 
and be famous. If not allowed to clap their wings 
and crow upon their own dunghill, they will sally 
forth, hke Burr, and go to conquering another. 




SHOE.T MEMORIES. 




EMORY appears sometimes to bear a cer- 
tain relation to the dimensions of the body. 
Some have grown up so high, no wonder 
they are unable to remember anything that hap- 
pened at a time when their heads were on a level 
with those of other people. Boys, the children of 
the rich and influential especially, when ripened 
into men, have very unhappy memories. They can 
hardly ever recollect any of all those '' eternal 
friendships," contracted in their early days, when 
they associated for years with their intellectual 
superiors of the poorer classes. We have remarked 
that a boy '' brought up at college " is rather more 
unfortunate in this respect than others, forgetting 
everything which happened before he entered ; and 
if a lucky chance should afterward, when he has 
left it, throw him into a city pulpit, there is not 
the least probability that he will ever be able to call 
to mind one of his old village acquaintances, even 
that with the farmer's lovely daughter sharing in 
the common decav. We have heard of the still 



SHORT MEMORIES. 171 

more remarkable case of a charming girl, who un- 
happily lost her memory so entirely in consequence 
of her father's touching $50,000 in Norwich and 
Worcester in a month, as to forget a whole circle 
of more than a dozen of her " dearest loves " the 
very day she heard of it. 

There is in our nature a beautiful antagonism to 
this phenomenon. It is called into exercise and ob- 
servation when a gentleman of opulence is reduced 
by some of the many untoward events of life to 
the reflections of poverty. This accident is found 
to be an extraordinary tonic to the faculties gen- 
erally, but to none probably more than the one 
we are speaking of. Such a person has forever 
afterward a very clear remembrance of what he 
once was, and can even relate all the particulars of 
his former splendor, — a proof of the w^onderful vis 
medicatrix that penetrates our poor humanity. 

On inquiry, we have ascertained that short mem- 
ories are very common indeed. There is a proud 
family in the neighborhood of Washington Square, 
whose heads cannot remember such a personage as 
a grandfather on either side. The offspring of par- 
ents inheriting homes erected from the proceeds of 
quack medicines or patent blacking, are almost 
always afflicted with shorter memories still, hardly 
recollecting who their fathers were. Fashionable 
citizens who have spent a whole summer most 



172 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

agreeably in the midst of a sensible and cordial so- 
ciety in the country, are never able to recognize a 
soul of them on meeting them agam next winter in 
the city. 

There is up-town a very fine aristocratic gentle- 
man of fortune made by judicious investments dur- 
ing the early part of life in old clothes and reputa- 
ble haberdashery, who seems quite at a loss how he 
came by his property, but is rather of the opinion 
that it was derived from an ancient entailment in 
the family. Indeed, we scarcely ever met with an 
instance where a man who lived to ride in his own 
coach ever remembered to have trundled a wheel- 
barrow, except that of the late Benjamin Bussey, 
in his lifetime one of the millionnaires of Boston. 
We have often heard him boast of the humility of 
his origin, and of passing his early years as a silver- 
buckle-maker and itinerant tinker amono; the hills 
and valleys of New England. Great men will 
sometimes recur with pride, and gratitude perhaps, 
to the meanness of their youth ; but such an avowal 
must be looked for among rich men very rarely in- 
deed. 

This capricious faculty begins to falter in some 
quarters at an early age. People who have passed 
their grand climacteric are expected to be visited 
with failing memories of course ; but the puzzle is 
that this sad disaster should overtake so many, es- 



SHORT MEMORIES. 173 

pecially if single, about the time of their arrival at 
twenty-five or thirty. Miss Prudy and Mr. Prim- 
rose are severally fifty, to say the least ; yet though 
neither of them ever dream of cutting that figure, 
they would cut from it if they could. They can- 
not call to mind a single event that happened more 
than fifteen, or, at the most, twenty years ago. 
The family record is unaccountably obliterated by 
some mischance, and there is positive danger of their 
forgetting even the day when they were born, though 
celebrated so unwisely in their unforeseeing youth, 
but fortunately the interesting dates are indelibly 
impressed upon the memory of every woman in 
the parish. O that time, like merit, might be kept 
from advancing by forgetfulness or neglect I 

When this defect prevails, as it is said to do some- 
times, to such a degree that husbands forget their 
spouses, and vice versa, and even become liable to 
take those of other people for their own, it ceases to 
be merely ridiculous or unfortunate ; it rises then to 
the dignity of sin, which must of course be turned 
over to the clergy, as better conversant with such 
matters. Still we must say that it will hardly do to 
carry benevolence to the pitch which some do, who 
deem it incumbent on them to treat other persons 
exactly as they do their own family. 

After all, there is a whimsicalness about this sub- 
ject which deserves to be particularly noted. The 



174 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

very same person who labors at one time under the 
malady of a feeble memory — when he borrows a 
sum of money of an acquaintance — will at another, 
when he happens to be the lender, perceive that the 
faculty is singularly strengthened. One gentleman, 
with whom we are acquainted, is a striking instance 
of this kind of tide in the power in question. He is 
in the constant habit of repeating the names of all 
his rich connections to the fraction of a cousin, but 
never for the life of him can recall even so much 
as a niece or uncle among all his poor relations. 
We are ourselves a proof of this strangely intermit- 
ting faculty ; for we perfectly know the inestimable 
value of short articles as well as pastry, yet are too 
apt to forget it when we take pen in hand. 

Notwithstanding this we must adventure just to 
add to the present article, that there are cases still 
more extraordinary than any which have been men- 
tioned. They exist where a man in the possession 
of the shortest of all memories forgets himself. 
This was the misfortune of the dashing Dick Drive- 
bays, when he broke his promise to marry the no- 
ble Clara for the sake of the wealthier Miss Beau- 
mond, who, on hearing the baseness of the scoundrel, 
told her maid to say she did not know that individ- 
ual. A more distinguished example occurred, when 
crentlemen in Wall Street, who on other occasions 
are universally acknowledged to remember remark- 



SHORT MEMORIES. 175 

ably well if they choose, actually lent Mr. Walker 
five millions of dollars, notwithstanding they knew 
there stood close behind him the devil's imp of a 
sub-treasurer, holding a box to put the silver in. 
Egregiously as they forgot themselves on that day, 
we don't believe they will fail to recollect the cir- 
cumstance for some time. It is thought that the 
Washincrton financier got credit as well as cash in 
that transaction, and proved himself such a match for 
Wall Street, that the financial department will go 
on quite easily as long as its Secretary is a Walker. 
We are tempted to extract a moral from all this ; 
and though everybody must laugh to see his sober 
visnomy in such a place, we hope it will be forgiven 
with the same ejood-nature that we are in the habit 
of showing toward the clerical temptation to let off 
a pun in a sermon. The lesson is this : seeing 
therefore the exceeding shortness of the recollec- 
tive faculty in human nature, don't distribute your 
property to your heirs, nor suffer the rogues to help 
themselves to it, till you are under the sod. If you' 
do, the sooner you are there the better ; for they 
will forget such a little circumstance even before 
those shoes of yours, which they have stepped into, 
are half worn out. Make them, if they need it, a 
generous allowance, and the chance is possible of 
being remembered sometimes on a quarter-day. 




CHAMPAGNE. 

quo' he, 

" My hearte it maketh righten saclde 
To pledge thee this ; my joUie laddie." — MS. 

Champagne ! Champagne ! 
How like a snake it sparkles, hisses, 
And, as a lying Judas, kisses. 

Flashing amain ! 
Gods ! who would taste such poisoned blisses ? 
Who is the cursed fool that wishes 

The cup to drain ? 

Champagne ! Champagne ! 
Fill high ! aye, fill your deep-mouthed glasses, 
And, as around the venom passes, 

Ring out the strain ! 
lo Bacche ! come here, ye asses. 
Ye drunkard-wrights, who still molasses, 

And God's own grain ! 

Drink we, friends, so well met here, 
Drink we to the absent dear. 
Drink we to an early bier, 
lo Bacche! 

Ye whom a doubt perplexes, 
Ye whom a sad thought vexes, 
Drown conscience, that distresses, 
lo Bacche ! 



CHAMPAGNE. 177 

Whose fond heart hath felt a bhght, 
Whose love-star hath lost its light, 
Drink, and quench your soul in night, 
lo Bacche ! 

Pledge true hearts and love-lit eyes, 
Pledge our friendship's golden ties. 
Pledge the worm that never dies, 
lo Bacche ! 

Champagne ! Champagne ! 
Poet ! whose songs make pimpled faces, 
And Bacchus ! who our race disgraces 

Lower than Cain ! 
Oh ! would that you whole calabashes, 
Brimful of punch and brandy-smashes. 

Were forced to drain ! 

Champagne ! Champagne ! 
Pah ! the filthy work advances. 
The staggering furniture enhances 

Delirium's reign ! 
How silly are Tom's drunken glances ? 
Before his glazing eye-balls dances 

A hellish train ! 

Champagne ! Champagne ! 
Now with the clustering grape-wreaths bind us, 
Our noble landlords all remind us 

Not to abstain ! 
Hold ! ere this vine-shroud has entwined us. 
We swear! that none shall henceforth find us 
Sober again ! 
12 



^^^^^ 






'^^^^^^^1^^^^^ 








THE FAST MAN. 

I HO is this celebrated individual whom no- 
body can overtake ? Even Time himself, 
swift as he is represented, may be taken 
hold of by the foretop ; but the Fast Man shows 
nothing but his back, as he is outstripping all pursu- 
ers. He is undoubtedly an American, who can run 
through ten miles or a fortune quicker than anybody 
else. Certainly he sails the fleetest ships, and drives 
the steamer the most rapidly. Who eats so quick as 
he ? The Americans are the greatest riders in the 
world. Hiram Franklin is now turning the Parisians 
dizzy with his round of circus-feats, — thereby per- 
petuating the fame of the philosopher of the same 
name, still remembered in the gay capital of France. 
For the Parisians adore genius, and do not much 
mind whether their homage is paid to a conqueror 
or a cook. Eaton Stone — their very names betray 
their Yankee origin — is likewise vaulting into the 
saddle of celebrity in London, and riding and reign- 
ing in the admiration of the people. 

The Fast Man must certainly be an American, 



THE FAST MAN. 179 

because nobody lives and propagates so fast as he ; 
and if he is so when wide awake, be sure he is 
when fast asleep. If he falls short of being fast in 
anything, it is in this, that he is not quite so stead- 
fast as would be for his good. See how he spends ! 
If he once sets out on the road to ruin, no one can 
make an end of the journey sooner than he. But 
if he can run to the devil with greater expedition 
than any other man, it is but justice to acknowledge 
that he can probably run back again with similar 
speed. An American funeral is sometimes seen 
upon a trot, and, if patience alone sits on a monu- 
ment, our countrymen must be content to go to the 
grave without one. Of course he has, from a mere 
feeling of impatience, been obliged to apply steam 
to navigation and invent the telegraph. Neither 
could he possibly submit to the old slow way of 
cradling his wheat and other grain crops ; so he in- 
vented McCormick's " Reaper " ; and that men 
might not die any longer in the slow process of one 
at a time, Colt has presented us a " Revolver," 
which will settle the matter for a dozen at once. An 
American is not slow at breakfast ; so attached is he 
indeed to creature-comforts, and so well entitled to 
the appellation w^e have given him, that in some 
States a particular day, called " Fast," has been set 
aside for the special accommodation of the Fast 
Man, and on it his execution at the table is double 
the usual rate. 



180 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

The diseases of the country assume the charac- 
teristic type. We hear but little of slow fevers and 
lingering complaints ; galloping consumptions are 
the rage, and the old quaternian can't be found in 
Webster's dictionary ; and so we suppose it has either 
become extinct, or been converted into a daily fit. 
In one part of the land at least, the city of New 
York, extraordinary haste has been exhibited to 
leave the world. Children who have just come into 
it, stay but a year or two, before they are in a 
hurry to depart. So great is the universal love of 
progress through the country, that even candidates 
for office, who won't run, are dropped immediately. 
Such a thing as a stand-still is utterly intolerable. 
No constitution of any of the States can be suffered 
to rest for more than ten years or so, when it is 
marched off* at double-quick time to make room for 
another. The temper of the people has affected 
the language ; for we cannot suppose that a lady 
actually conforms her naturally graceful pace to 
the common phrase of her American gallant, when 
he invites her to " trot out " with him, and give 
her friend, Mrs. Wing, a flying call. In commu- 
nities so active, one must make up his mind to 
meet much hasty temper as well as pudding ; but it 
will be no great matter if the proper sweets are 
added. 

One thing more : however fine it may be thought 



THE FAST MAN. 



181 



for boys and girls to leap over the barrier that di- 
vides them from gentlemen and ladies, — however 
flattering to national pride for America to be run- 
ning the race of empire in her early youth, — the 
judicious, whose eyes have been placed in the fore- 
part of their heads on purpose to see where it is 
best to step, and so that they may look before they 
leap, will not deem it improper to quote, for the 
benefit of fast people, the old Latin maxim, " Festina 
lente," — make haste 





TEMPTATIONS OF THE NIGHT. 




HE evening air of the country is considered 
to possess a noxious power ; that of the 
Southern States especially is known to he 
poisoned with deadly malaria. The night-time in 
town is not a whit more safe than it is in the forests 
and meadows. Its atmosphere may not be loaded 
with such fatal vapors, and ghosts may not squeak 
and gibber, as in village church-yards ; but the 
paved highway and the purlieus of gas-lights have 
small immunities to boast of in this respect, for the 
devil himself takes his nightly city-rounds in per- 
son, and does not delegate his business to inferior 
spirits. 

The immoral nocturnal malaria of overcrowded 
seaports is more to be avoided than any swamps or 
rice-grounds whatever. What fever can be com- 
pared with that tide of hot blood which surges with- 
in the veins of thousands under the pale influences 
of the moon, in whose potent beams even dead fish 
and flesh are said very soon to lose their sweetness 
and contract a taint ! What chills of soul succeed 



TEMPTATIONS OF THE NIGHT. 183 

the debaucheries of these unholy and tempting hours 
of darkness ! Most of the Hcentiousness, drunken- 
ness, gambhng, and sensual indulgence occurs when 
the light of day, together with the pure spirits that 
inhabit the sunbeams, have departed. The bad 
spirits of the lower world appear, if at all, when the 
good are gone, and have always been feigned to 
walk the earth, when thus abandoned, as it were, 
of heaven. The night is then no time for man to 
be abroad. If the stars and planets have a voice, 
as Addison says they have, they warn us, upon their 
nocturnal rising, as plainly as the tolling of the cur- 
few-bell, that, the labor of the day being over, it is 
time to retire, and be out of the way of doing or re- 
ceiving mischief in the obscurity of the approaching 
hours. Instead of obeying, however, the heavenly 
voice, — as it may be termed, for it comes from the 
heavenly orbs that roll above us, — the setting of 
the sun is a signal among thousands that their day 
is but just breaking. Many have slept all day to 
be fresh and ready for the evening party or carouse. 
The theatres throw open their vomitories ; the gam- 
bling-hells and drinking-pandemoniums are illumi- 
nated as by a midnight sun ; and the brothel sets its 
snares. Opulence glittering with silks and dia- 
monds, gold and lace, wakes the echoes of the streets, 
disturbs the tired sleep of the industrious, and dis- 
perses the fevered dreams of the sick, as they pursue 



184 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

V 

their noisy way, during all hours of the night, to 
ostentatious jams, given for the display of the good 
luck of recent speculation, and frequently paid for 
from the shallow funds of approaching bankruptcy. 

We have no holidays, they say. How should 
there be, when every night is spent in dissipation ? 
One hears no appointments now for pleasant inter- 
course in the daytime. The inquiry is. Where shall 
1 see you to-night ? And the reply is generally, at 
some theatre, or oyster-cellar, or subterranean, lower 
yet. 

Such was not the custom among our virtuous an- 
cestry. With them, day was a time for pleasure, as 
well as toil, and night was a season for domestic en- 
joyment and rest. Those good people thought the 
sun and moon had made a sensible division between 
the night and day, and knew which w^as which. 
The multitude now^ believe they don't know any- 
thing about it, and that what was formerly called 
night, is day, and the reverse. 

Notwithstanding this, however, we have inherited 
so much of the spirit of former times as to be of 
opinion, that, if a kind of curfew-bell law could be 
established, by common consent, without its ancient 
tyranny, and people were to go to bed and put out 
their lights, not, as then, at eight, but at ten o'clock, 
that this one single regulation would dispense with 
half our penitentiaries and police-force, — purify or 



TEMPTATIONS OF THE NIGHT. 185 

else annihilate the theatres, shut up most of the 
dram-shops and gaming-houses, and reduce crime 
and pauperism to be manageable evils. Night-tides 
are the highest. Those of passion in the human 
soul are no exception ; they belong to the great sys- 
tem of universal influences. Fountains, dry by day, 
have been known to burst forth afresh at night, and 
there is a night-pulse pervading humanity wherever 
it is found, aggravating fevers and all diseases, and 
often rendering them fatal in spite of skill and care. 
If there is not an unseen but omnipresent enemy 
abroad when darkness overspreads the world, then 
poets are silly dreamers ; for they have universally 
spoken of the activity of such nightly agencies un- 
friendly to our race. Some of them appear even to 
have owed to them no small share of their inspira- 
tion. As evidence of this, volumes almost might be 
quoted ; but we shall mention only the song of 
Thomas Moore bearing the title of " Fly not yet," in 
which he entreats his companions to 

" Fly not yet, 't is just the hour, 
When PLEASURE, like a midnight flower, 
That scorns the eye of vulgar light. 
Begins to bloom for sons of night, 
And maids that love the moon. 



'T is then their soft attractions glowing. 
Set the tides and goblets flowing," &c., &c. 



He continues. — 



186 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

*' Fly not yet, the fount that play'd 
In times of old through Ammou's shade, 
Though icy cold by day it ran, 
Yet still, like souls of mirth, began 
To burn when night was near. 
And thus should woman's heart and looks 
At noon be cold as winter brooks, 
Nor kindle till the night returning 
Brings their genial hour for burning," &c. 

This is from one who knew, so that we cannot 
doubt of the temptations and unhealthy nature of 
the powers who rule the dark hours of the twenty- 
four. 




THE NOVEL-READER. 

OUSIN Hatty is an enthusiast in that 
branch of domestic industry known by the 
name of '' hght reading." One night, 
after being rapt in a volume of this description till 
nearly twelve o'clock, she shut it up, exclaiming 
with animation, as she did it, " Oh, Thomas, where 
should we be, I wonder, were it not for books ? " 

" Abed, I suppose ; where else ought we to be, 
my love ? " answered her husband, looking softly 
into his young wife's attractive face. — \_Bihliog. 

The dying candle burns dim, 

St. John's is tolling one ; 
Zoneless and slipshod the maiden sits, 

A speechless statue of stone. 
From morning's blessed light 

To noon's meridian glare ; 
From mid-day's splendor to black midnight 

She sits like a spectre there ! 

Read — read — read, 

Magazine, novel, and tale, 



188 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

With sateless appetite reading on, 
Till the brain begins to fail. 

Is it strange she is so pale, 
Her eyes so heavy and red, 

Her raven hair so faded and snarled, 
Her languid blood so dead ? 

A worm is gnawing her heart, 

The book-worm, hungry and lean ; 
Twin-born to him of the fiery still, 

With fangs as cruel and keen. 
Books — books — books, 

Conceived in labor and pain, 
Vampires ye are of body and soul, 

Whose ruin is your gain. 

Health, and comfort, and friends 

Yield to your serpent-charms ; 
Love, husband, child, are forgot, 

To clasp you within her arms. 
While suifering sighs unheard, 

While poverty pines alone. 
She weeps over fiction's tender page, 

And makes feigned sorrows her own ! 

O God ! that a creature so good 

As woman at her prime. 
Should peak and shrivel on such vile food, 

So long before her time ! 
She might have a serious soul ; 

She might be at forty a belle ; 
Why need she live a frivolous thing, 

Whom sense becomes so well ? 



THE NOVEL-READER. 189 

Tales — tales — tales, 

Duty, reality, truth, 
Are only fit for grandfathers now, 

Too homely things for youth. 
When stories are swallowed down 

As histories in disguise, 
How long ere history will become 

But a story in our eyes ? 

Men once saw the devil in Faust, — 

The imp at the present day 
Still handles types, but never before 

In such a devilish way. 
In power he 's stronger than steam. 

Swift as the lightning in speed. 
Ink-black, though fair he may seem, 

And talks like a lawyer fee'd. 

This demon, subtle and false. 

As once in paradise. 
Laughs in his sleeve to see the sex 

Taking his good advice. 
He tempts them with numberless tomes, 

Duodecimos and octaves, 
Where love-sick Fanny in woodlands roams. 

Or moon-struck Manuel raves. 

Beware ! great reader, beware ! 

The rankest fancies of men 
Have scattered poison everywhere, 

By the power of press and pen. 
The worst that ever was thought 

Is stamped on the printed roll, 



190 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

And she, who has gained all books have taught, 
Has lost a virgin soul. 

Still, 't is heaven, she thinks, to read, 

'T is hell to sweep and stew ; 
Millions are born to suflfer and slave : 

She — she has nothing to do 
But drop an indolent tear 

For beings who never lived, 
And break her heart for a ruffian in print. 

Or a Miss in fancy deceived. 

So dreams the novel-sick heart, 

Weak literary thrall ; 
Ah ! the soul that thinks only others' thoughts 

Is hardly a soul at all : 
It is but an echo, or shade, 

A parrot, ape, — what you will, — 
An intellectual duplicate, 

Not worth the room it may fill. 

Past midnight, — still she strains 

Her eyeballs over her book ; 
Still zoneless and slipshod the maiden sits, 

With a wild and haggard look. 
From morning's wholesome breath 

To noon's meridian glare ; 
From mid-day's beauty to grim midnight, 
By solar ray and pale lamp-light, 

She has sat, a spectre there ! 



THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE. 




HE circumstance adduced by superficial 
thinkers to detract from the dignity and 
USEFULNESS of PHYSIC, Constitutes in fact 
one of its principal claims to consideration. We al- 
lude to the multitude of medical charlatans. Where 
there is an abundance of sharks, be sure some valu- 
able fish are near. It must be a noble vocation 
which invites numerous pretenders. There are 
few counterfeits of a worthless bank ; and a misera- 
ble author, or school of art, invites not many imita- 
tors. It is a rich soil that is most infested with 
weeds. We want no better evidence — though it 
is true we have it — of the value of the professions 
of divinity and law than the shoals of fanatics and 
pettifoggers, that, like vermin upon plants, contrive 
to get a sorry living upon some of the branches of 
those noble trees of knowledge. If they were less 
deeply grounded than they are in the wants of man, 
there would not be a tribe of hano;ers-on deceiving 
and depending upon them for subsistence. Para- 
sites are only seen on the noblest growths of the 
forest. 



192 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

It would be strange indeed if the five-and-twenty 
centuries, which have been flowing on since the 
father of physic flourished, had not in its thousands 
of streams brought down valuable deposits of medi- 
cal knowledge to the present day. In that space of 
time immense quantities of golden sands have no 
doubt been deposited upon our plains, and large con- 
tributions of medical science have been collected 
and embodied in books. Diseases of every variety 
that have afflicted humanity during that long period 
have been diligently investigated, and the remedies 
and results recorded. Some have been subdued 
and disappeared ; some prophylactics have been dis- 
covered, and all have been alleviated. If any re- 
main incurable, it does not derogate from the claims 
of medicine to the respect and gratitude of man- 
kind. 

One cause of the want of a complete triumph of 
the healing art originates in the perpetual influx of 
new diseases arising from the new conditions to 
which our race is from time to time subjected. No 
sooner has the faculty succeeded in developing and 
ameliorating the old, than strange disorders arise, 
with which they have to struggle anew, and if pos- 
sible to subdue them. Thus medicine makes contin- 
ual progress, and can boast of numerous victories, 
but is robbed of much merited honor because fresh 
enemies spring up as fast as the old ones are con- 



THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE. 193 

quered. This gives a stationary appearance at times 
to medical science, and sometimes of being even 
retrograding. But such a conclusion is unjust. As 
well might the complaint be made that charity 
is dying out of the world because the wants of the 
race continually multiply. As well might we ac- 
cuse astronomy and theology of going backward ; 
for there never have been so many questions in 
either unresolved perhaps as at the present moment. 

The fact is, in proportion to the advance of knowl- 
edge does the dark void of the unknown expand 
before us. In the infancy of the world, all ap- 
peared plain enough, merely because so little was 
known. Man has found ever since, that, as he 
rose to a greater height, his views extended farther, 
and yet the horizon that lay before him was be- 
come more distant than ever. The science of medi- 
cine has only had the experience of other branches 
of knowledge. The progress of the race, its im- 
proved circumstances in some instances, and altered 
ones in all, have brought in from generation to gen- 
eration new phases of derangement of man's physi- 
cal system for physicians to contend with. 

The body of medical discoveries and principles 
has been steadily increasing, but not faster than 
new human wants demand, if so fast ; and conse- 
quently the boundaries of ignorance seem not at all 
contracted. The collection of facts and doctrines 

13 



194 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

is immense and valuable, and is always growing 
larger ; yet they must necessarily lag behind the 
new demands for them which spring up perpetually ; 
and they must therefore at the time be more or less 
inadequate. But medicine has never been more en- 
lightened and progressive than at the present mo- 
ment, and its genuine progress never more honored, 
or deserving honor. As might be expected, it is 
at just this season of its prosperity, and because of 
it, that the richest harvest of quacks and nostrum- 
mongers, charlatans and dupes, is witnessed. It 
must be so ; the brightest lights cast the deepest 
shadows. True science should not be disheartened 
at this, because it is the law of progress in mind, as 
well as physics, that obstacles of folly, deception, ig- 
norance, cupidity, should increase in proportion to 
the rapidity of the advance. 




SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 




NE of the most agreeable concomitants of the 
prevaiHng prosperity is its diffusion, not 
only among the great but also among the 
little folks. It reconciles us to the sight of lordly 
palaces and splendor, to know that the one-stories 
have also enough and to spare. But that is not the 
point of my present writing, which is to let you into 
several of the new customs springing up in society 
probably in consequence of the fresh fields of pleas- 
ure which sudden and unexpected wealth has lately 
opened. 

By far the most serious and delightful occupation 
in this city is the evening party, including the con- 
cert and the ball in that comprehensive term. It 
may be a little expensive, to be sure, as now man- 
aged ; but what matters it at a time like this, if for- 
tunes which are made in a day should also be lav- 
ished in a night ? It may be a consumer of time as 
precious as money ; but of that there is a surplus 
too ; for some of us, who are young, have nothing 
in the world to do, and do it. Oh, it is so pleasant ; 



196 A UTUMN LEA VES. 

time never can hang heavy, with a party once a 
week, which it takes all the rest of it before and 
after in getting ready for or rid of. 

infants' party. 

And now these pleasant enjoyments are not, as 
formerly, restricted to people in their teens, but are 
wisely extended to — not those who are out of them, 
but to tiny pretty creatures, who have not yet 
reached them. I lately saw a card of invitation 
from a lady on the Fifth Avenue not quite two years 
of age to another Miss of a little past one, requesting 
the pleasure of her company at a conversazione in 
seven days thereafter. Thirty of both sexes were 
to be invited of about the same blooming age. I 
have not heard what took place at the meeting of 
these rose-buds, for the time appointed has not come ; 
but we have no doubt, diminutive as they are, that 
they will blow out pretty handsomely, — they would 
not be New Yorkers if they did not. Each will go 
accompanied by an adjutant, of course, to attend to 
necessary details. As to the conversation, none of 
them being able to talk as yet, it will probably rise 
no higher than that of their older brothers and sis- 
ters on similar occasions. 

We have been favored with an answer from one 
of the Misses, declining the invitation on the osten- 
sible grounds stated in the note, which I am at lib- 



SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 197 

erty to send you ; — it will be found annexed. But 
I am privately assured that the reason of declination 
really -was that the little lady had lost a favorite kit- 
ten lately, and so was out of spirits. Going into 
company so soon after such an event was thought to 
be improper, even if she had not bruised the tip of 
her nose in falling into the washbowl. 

" My dear Josephine, — Please accept my compliments 
and regrets, that, in consequence of my mamma's prudential no- 
tions about young ladies going into society before they are out 
of their teens, (that is, they must be two years old, you know,) 
I must forego the pleasure of a romp in your mamma's fine 
parlors. Only to think of the fun of rolling and tumbling, fum- 
bling and crumbling, smashing and crashing all the pretty 
things. I declare it is too bad ! when, in all my life-long, I 
have never had so rare a chance to exhibit my accomplish- 
ments that I should be prevented because I am not considered 
to be out of leading-strings. Ridiculous ! when I have run 
alone ever since I was a year old — last September. Then 
she thinks I require so much attention and a constant looking 
after : but it is no such thing. I don't want so much looking 
to. I want to do just as I have a mind to ; and then I don't 
cry, nor kick, nor scratch. 

" My mamma says I have a remarkable talent for mischief. 
Now what do you think she calls mischief? Why just the 
throwing of my great-grandpapa's miniature into the water, 
and washing the paint oiF his dear old face, which had not 
been washed for at least fifty years before. If that was wrong, 
why do they wash my face every day, 1 should like to know ? 
I don't like it at all, and they are aware of it, I assure you. 

" I think this a very strange world. I don't understand 
half the things in it, though I am esteemed such a paragon of 
wisdom and cunning that my fond parents are sometimes 
afraid that I know too much for this world, and so will bid 



198 AUTUMN LEAVES, 

adieu to it and them, and betake myself to more enlightened 
regions, where genial spirits are waiting my angelic presence. 
But, dear Josephine, I fear I am getting what is called rather 
high-flown ; so I will just stop and bid you good-bye. 

" P. S. — Is this not a rather long epistle, for so short an 
acquaintance ? if so, pray excuse it. I hope to learn curtness 
and pertness, and all that by and by. 

" Yours truly, Lulu." 

THE DOG-PARTY. 

At the risk of spinning this letter out tediously, 
I must inform you of another party, that has come 
to my knowledge, though I cannot arrive at the par- 
ticulars. A lady, it appears, admits to her society 
a beautiful poodle, for which she has a high regard. 
One day she resolved to show this by inviting twen- 
ty-five of the handsomest and most agreeable fellows 
of the same race to visit her friend. They came, 
every one ; not a single excuse was sent. There 
were crop ears and long ones ; little puppies and 
great ones, as will always be the case at parties ; 
white, black, and red ; slender and chubby ; of grey- 
hound and bull-dog families ; of long silky locks of 
hair, short hair, and none at all ; generally with 
whiskers and moustaches ; here a cur crept in and 
ran between the leos of a noble Newfoundland, and 
there a stout good-natured spaniel overturned sev- 
eral little fellows with his caresses ; in short, there 
were twenty-five snappers and barkers of every 
variety. They were all fancifully dressed in ribbon 



SOCIAL CUSTOMS. 199 

streamers. I learned that they were regaled upon 
dainties they were fond of, and had been accustomed 
to be treated with, — for they were aristocratic dogs, 
— such as chicken without the salad, beef a la mode^ 
sugar - candy, sponge - cake, and cream. One of 
these genteel dogs forgot himself so far as to put his 
nose into one of the cream-pots, and thereby soiled 
his ruffles ; for which impropriety there was a gen- 
eral bark of " turn him out, turn him out," as usual 
among Bowery Boys ; so he was sent home very 
much chopfallen. No other accident has been di- 
vulged. JOHNTE. 





BOSTON. 

Who was it said, " Great cities are great sores ? " 
Ah ! 't was a grave mistake, and many scores 
That wily Southern statesman made, 
Or else posterity belies his shade. 

But 't is a falsehood base, 

A libel on our race ; 

And History shall give the lie 

To the unnatural calumny. 

I summon Lacedaemon, Athens, Rome, 

The hundred towns of Greece and Italy, to come. 

Ay, had you never bravely piled 

Your mighty ramparts 'gainst the onset wild 

Of rapine, tyranny, and crime, 

A line had told our destiny; 

And at this distant time 
The leopard's lair had been our savage home. 

And you, proud mistress of the " silver Thames," 

With the pale Adriatic Queen, 

The brilliant Regent of the Seine, 
And all the stars of Tuscia's diadems. 
Who o'er the trembling fugitives once threw 
Your serried shields, when flying from the Vandal crew ; 
I call on all to brand 



BOSTON. 201 

The aspersion of your land, 

And boldly claim 

The meed of fame, 
For civilizing man so justly due. 

And shall the tributary verse, 
Which feebly essays to rehearse 

The well-earn'd praise 

Of deeds of other days, 
And glorious men of every clime. 
Whose names yet swim upon the sea of time, 

Forget the pride 

Of Charles's winding tide, 

Which hopes ere long. 
With grand old cities side by side. 
To be embalm'd in deathless song ? 

So gracefully she sits 

Upon her gentle heights. 
She seems just lighted from her airy home. 
Or risen newly from th' Atlantic's foam. 
So sweet a summer sight may scarce be seen, 
As Boston with her hundred islands green. 
Then too her sea-built wharves and granite stores, 
That line her docks, and fringe her ship-girt shores ; 
Her lordly palaces round Beacon's haughty brow, 
The " Common " spreading, like a lake, below 

Its velvet robe of green, 

Hemmed in between 
Tall sycamores, and elms so old and grand, 
By my own Brookline's scented breezes fann'd ; 
Her solemn churches, shooting high their spires. 
Lit up, like dying saints, with evening's fading fires. 



202 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

The old Provincial Legislative House, 

Which helped their fathers' patriot ire to rouse, ' 

And separate a kingdom, now divides 

But only State Street, which it gloriously hides. 

The Quincy Market-House, and, more than all, 

Young Freedom's Cradle, famous Faneuil Hall. 

But not for these I lift my voice in praise. 

They are the common themes of poets' lays, — 

The casket merely, in whose bosom lie 

The precious gems that miss the vulgar eye. 

Far nobler subjects prompt my unbought song, 

Her hearts to bless, and make weak virtue strong. 

Her deeds of love — devotion to the laws — 

And arms to strike in Freedom's sacred cause ; 

Her souls contented to be greatly good, 

By princely spirit warm'd, if not by noble blood. 

These, Boston, are your jewels, brighter far. 

Than all which blaze in an imperial star. 

Your Lawrences and Lowells, Perkins, Grants, 

Your Tuckermans and Channings, struggling to advance 

The weal of Boston, say you ? or their State ? 

Oh, no ; — 't is this which animates the falsely great. 

No Chivalry — mean plant of selfish souls — 

Their pure and large philanthropy controls. 

Heaven, knowing how they 'd use the bounty, gave 

To some the power, to some the will to save. 

And, when vouchsafing men of fortune there, 

In mercy lent them hearts that knew not how to spare. 

We find one rich, perhaps another, kind ; 

The wonder is to see them here combin'd. 

The ignorant and sick, the blind and dumb. 

The sailor wandering in his floating home ; 



BOSTON. 203 

The poor of every nation, kindred, name ; 
To them appeal, and — granted is their claim. 

The Muse must pause, for were she to repeat 
The deeds of Love in this her favorite seat. 
The list would swell, like lawyer's bill of fees, 
Or that of Greece's ships by blind Moeonides. 
Boston, in fine, possesses all that's rare. 
Except the proper article for Mayor ! * 

* They coiild not choose a mayor for a long time. 





FOREIGN TRAVEL. 




ERETOFORE the majority of the people 
were well content to live happy and die at 
home ; but a trip to Europe has been re- 
garded, within a few years past especially, as one of 
the greatest luxuries and even accomplishments of 
the age. It is inquired no longer of a gentleman 
where he was educated, has he a diploma ? — but 
has he been abroad ? If the answer is affirmative, 
the traveller rises to par at once in the fashionable 
exchange, and takes his station in the drawing-room 
with acknowledged double Ds and reputed single 
prima donnas. 

About the middle of the present century this ten- 
dency to the ancient world began to display itself 
among the cattle population of the West. A select 
company of the beeves and swine of that polished 
region made an excursion to the country of their 
ancestors, and were appreciated for all that they 
were worth. We all know the advantages of a Eu- 
ropean reputation ; they rose immediately in public 
estimation at home, at Bull's Head and Brighton, 



FOREIGN TRAVEL. 205 

and have been continually rising to the present 
hour. 

A voyage to the Eastern hemisphere is indeed a 
compendious passage to public distinction, but at- 
tended with embarrassments. The salt ocean has 
its terrors. The travelling quadrupeds had there- 
fore to be prepared and reconciled in some measure 
to the trial. With this view they were familiarized 
to brine before embarking, and thus preserved 
against one of the principal evils of a protracted sea- 
life. As for the rest, they were shipped in packages 
like the Irish emigrants to these shores, who find 
themselves well packed, it is true, yet somehow do 
not experience its saving power so effectually as 
could be wished ; for hundreds of them, notwith- 
standing the pickle they are in, are lost upon the 
voyage. 

Thus matters went smoothly on till a few years 
past, when people walking through their corn-fields 
were said to hear distinctly the words " We are 
sent for," rising up from among the hills ; while 
every ear of corn appeared to listen to the unusual 
remark, and the deep-green leaves fluttered with 
pleasure, and waved like the undulations of the At- 
lantic, though not the slightest breeze was blowing 
at the time. Similar ominous sounds, but in the 
Dutch language, were reported to have been heard 
in the wheat-districts of New York. 



206 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

The burly farmers pondered in their hearts these 
singular expressions of the young blades, stuffed 
their hands to the bottom of their breeches'-pockets, 
and finding no light in that celebrated abode of it, 
said nothing. The next steamer brought the as- 
tounding news of the repeal of the corn-laws. The 
corn-fields over the whole country were ready for 
it. Warned, as we have seen, by magnetic influ- 
ences, of events taking place in Europe, they made 
a speculator's use of the information thus obtained 
in advance of the mail, and grew as is well known 
with astonishing rapidity and evident satisfaction, 
day and night. Ambitious as kernels always are, 
in the general at least, and resolved that their west- 
ern rivals, wdiom they had been the making of, 
should never go before them, with all their legs, 
they made up their minds to accept the first card of 
invitation that should be sent them from across the 
water. 

But here was the rub. The other travellers to 
Europe that have been mentioned, had either ac- 
quaintances or connections there, or were descended 
from ancestors residing in that quarter of the globe. 
Indian Corn was therefore troubled with misgivings 
respecting her reception ; for she was an unadulter- 
ated indigene of America, without a drop of foreign 
sap running in her stalks. Really never tasted by 
Englishmen, she had the misfortune to be constantly 



FOREIGN TRAVEL. 207 

in their mouths, yet only to be slandered. Though 
naturally modest and rather mealy-mouthed, yet 
these things vexed her, for she possesses considerable 
spirit, as distillers know, and can become quite snap- 
pish when thoroughly warmed up. Notwithstand- 
ing these disadvantages, however, on being strongly 
pressed by the good-natured queen of the Islands of 
the Sea, she hastened to shell out, and depart from 
her native soil along with her companions. 

Their reception in Great Britain was the most 
flattering possible. The common people, the best 
judges of the productions of nature as well as art, 
received them gladly with open arms, and mouths 
also. All was joy ; nothing went against the grain. 
Their introduction was instantaneous ; they were 
absolutely devoured with kindness. The people 
could not get enough of them. The hesitation 
about Indian corn disappeared immediately, and the 
corn likewise. 

After the grains had sailed, the potatoes regretted 
that they had not borne them company. Some rea- 
sons for that step might be weaker than in the 
case of those who were gone ; but there were others 
in their favor of peculiar strength. They were out 
of health, and a voyage to Europe had been fre- 
quently recommended by the faculty to persons in 
that condition, particularly the clergy. It might be 
beneficial to rusty coats as well as black, who have 
been known to receive so much benefit from a voy- 



208 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

age to the Old World as to be induced even to visit 
it a second time. There seems to be something in 
her worn-out constitutions that wonderfully renews 
their own. With such uncommon eyes, too, as 
Murphies have, no one could hope to see more of 
European manners and customs ; but alas, their ab- 
sence from their native hills could not be supplied 
so well as that of the clerical profession. Potatoes 
enjoy not the help of apprentices and journeymen to 
take their places in emergencies. The conclusion of 
the matter was, they w^ere compelled to be content to 
remain at home, and snuggle together under their 
own vines, nursing their disease as they may. In 
the mean while, something surely ought to be done 
for the cruel rot which afflicts them. This obvious- 
ly might be removed by added care, for this would 
turn it into carrot, which Dr. Underrow of the 
Farmers' Club assures us (and he, of all men, 
ought to know about everything below-ground) is 
one of the very best esculents for cattle with which 
he is acquainted. 

Bills of mortality give the clergy credit from the 
days of Methuselah, who was probably one of 
them, down to Elder Harvey, of living as long as 
anybody need to do ; yet there is no description of 
men among us who are so afflicted all their lives 
with periodical complaints as they. Ten or a dozen 
years of pastoral labor are sufficient to bring on 
symptoms so alarming as to baffle the whole materia 



FOREIGN TRAVEL. 209 

medlca of America, and render a resort to Europe 
absolutely indispensable. Fortunate it is that the 
malady which calls for so expensive a regimen 
chiefly occurs to those unfortunate individuals who 
enjoy a liberal income. The wonder is, how the 
other two learned professions escape the terrible 
disease. It is true, their business at home would 
be ruined by the prescription of a two years' resi- 
dence abroad, and clients and patients might possi- 
bly object to pay for physic and advice, adminis- 
tered only by a figure of speech. For that reason, 
or some other, they are exempt comparatively from 
the twin scourges of bronchitis and dyspepsia; and 
instead of the luxury of the disease felt only to be 
cured by travel in foreign countries, they are obliged 
to put up with the compensation, however inade- 
quate, of unremitted health at home. 

The steward of an ocean -steamer discovers an 
insight into the real condition and wants of a vale- 
tudinarian, unknown to the faculty wdio practise on 
the land. It is he who commences the regenerat- 
ing work which the inspiration of the air of the Old 
World is destined to complete. How different is 
this from the atmosphere of the New ! No one can 
help acknowledging, on the least reflection, that air 
coming over the craggy peaks of our granite moun- 
tains must be entirely too hard and dry for the pur- 
poses of digestion. The fine moist atmosphere of 
14 



210 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

London, on the contrary, will dissolve our food 
almost without any trouble on our own part, — an 
interesting fact to dyspeptics. This is an impor- 
tant saving of human kbor, and shows the reason 
why three millions of our race have squeezed them- 
selves within those small boundaries. At the present 
time unusual accessions have been made from the 
Scotch and Irish countries, where the function of 
digestion is believed to be somewhat interrupted. 
It is hoped that the English climate will put it 
again in motion. 

It has been reported by the most fashionable tour- 
ists, who are invariably the most critical amateurs 
of art, that the breezes which have the advantage 
of sweeping over the Pontine marshes possess 
qualities very agreeable to clerical invalids. In fact, 
their excellence is apparent in the immortahty of 
Csesar and Tully, who used to dwell in their neigh- 
borhood a great many years ago. Works of art 
also executed in and about Rome have lived so long 
a time that it is conjectured they will never die. 
There our countrymen bid fair to experience in a 
similar manner its embalming power. But this ex- 
traordinary influence will probably not be imparted 
to every traveller who pursues lost health in those 
classic regions. These find their principal relief in 
the studios and conversaziones of Italy, and salons 
and operas of Paris, under the care of female pro- 



FOREIGN TRAVEL. 211 

fessors of Hygiene, ayIio practise in these hospitals. 
The malady of the throat (sometimes called the 
clergyman's disease) is never able to resist their pre- 
scriptions in the French and Italian tongue, for any 
length of time. 

But alas ! the opinion of the most of those who 
have tried this course of treatment is like that of our 
Irish fellow-citizens respecting vaccination — that it 
wears out in a very few years. No sooner does the 
afflicted one venture to return to his native land, 
than the process of degeneracy commences, till an- 
other application of the remedy seems as necessaiy 
as ever. So the regimen is repeated, and always 
with success ; and, whatever may become of his use- 
fulness, life is sure to be preserved. So have I anx- 
iously watched a battle between a spider (the dis- 
ease) and a toad (the patient). Now the spider bites 
him in his throat or stomach ; whereupon the poi- 
soned toad with haste betakes him to a neighboring 
plantain, whereof having partaken as much as likes 
him, he, nothing daunted, returns to his first position, 
and renews the fight. A second and a third time the 
venomous insect strikes him with his fangs, and the 
blessed sea-green plant as often extracts the deadly 
virus from his fat body, and restores him safe and 
sound as ever to the combat. But when this won- 
derful panacea can no longer be approached, the 
poor sick toad yields him languishingly to his fierce 
distemper, and succumbs to inevitable fate. 



THE LATE MAN. 



HE late Mr. Onslow is not deceased, as 
might naturally be conjectured from the 

little epithet which always precedes his 

name. The expressive monosyllable is his by the 
fairest of titles, for he purchased it at a high 
price. To be late is one of the most expensive of 
luxuries. It cost the Orleans branch of the Ca- 
petian line the loss of the throne of France. But 
though the Count of Paris may or may not have 
missed the sceptre, from the tardiness of his grand- 
father's abdication in his favor, he gained a valuable 
device, which he and his heirs may wear instead of 
the hlies. " Too late " may be inscribed on his 
escutcheon in exchange for the inheritance of which 
the robber Louis has despoiled him, — an exorbitant 
price to pay though for two such stunted words ; 
but mottoes have always been dearly, often desper- 
ately earned, — sometimes acquired by virtue, fre- 
quently by violence, and always at great cost. 

" The late " Mr. Onslow is apt to be rather tardy 
in his movements, and never in his life knew what 
it was to be at the right place at the right time ; 



THE LATE MAN. 213 

consequently never gained any victories, nor other 
advantage, like Lord Nelson, by being at a spot, 
or executing an act, a quarter of an hour before 
the time. His appearance or performance always 
happened a quarter of an hour after. Like a bad 
musket he perpetually hangs fire. Everything he 
touches seems to do so too. His watch is ever a 
quarter of an hour too slow ; and its owner there- 
fore is sure to be just where he ought not to be. 
He is always conjugating the verb " to be " in a 
future tense, yet can never overtake the present. 
Mr. Onslow has a son, which has been put down 
as the only evidence he ever gave of punctuality 
in conduct. 

This unfortunate habit of Mr. Onslow is a sore 
inconvenience to him. Such a man can have no 
contemporaries ; for he comes after the times of other 
people, and may be therefore looked upon virtu- 
ally as a species of posterity. No person knows so 
well as he what it is to see the boat a good ten 
minutes upon its way, on his arrival at the slip. 
The comfort of being left behind by the cars, him- 
self and bag and baggage, is a daily experience with 
him ; so that he is always regarded as a passenger in 
the next train but one. He probably never sinc^ he 
was born saw more than the tail of a procession, or 
heard anything but the peroration of a sermon. To 
him, therefore, texts are secrets, and the music of 



214 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

life unknown, at least that part of it which marches 
in the van of street-parades. Mr. Onslow probably 
imagines that dramas are composed entirely of fifth 
acts, having heard no other ; and was on one occa- 
sion astonished to be told that people had soup at 
dinner, never happening to have come to the table 
till the second course. He once tried his hand at 
gardening, and projected a splendid melon-patch ; 
but he did not think to put his seed in till he saw 
ripe nutmegs in the market. There is not a kinder- 
hearted man ; and he would be of essential service 
to his friends in sickness, if he could only make it 
convenient to call upon them before they were given 
over by the doctor. His purse is ready for the des- 
titute and suffering ; but nothing else about him is ; 
so that his money rests in his pocket undisturbed, 
till the poor object of commiseration is in jail or the 
alms-house. 

But this may more properly be reckoned among 
the inconveniences which his tardy habits bring on 
others ; and these are quite as numerous as those 
they entail upon himself. To prevent a dozen peo- 
ple from transacting business, because he delays his 
coming, is too common a circumstance to be noticed ; 
for j^e never by any accident did otherwise. The 
only time he was ever recollected to have arrived 
in season was to attest the execution of a neighbor's 
last will ; but it is confidently predicted, it will not 



THE LATE MAN. 215 

be possible for him to make his own. He is a stren- 
uous politician and ardent party-man, but he is sure 
to get to the poll in a great fever just after it has 
been closed. If a lawyer, such a man gets his client 
nonsuited ; if a physician, perhaps his patient may 
thrive by his neglect ; if a minister, he is apt to keep 
the congregation waiting, not upon the Lord, but on 
himself. His note lies over at the bank just long 
enough to be protested and his indorsers frightened, 
when he pays it with the costs. His day is made 
up principally of afternoons, and he begins to count 
at eleven. He goes to market just in season to buy 
what everybody else has left, and has it sent home 
to cook after the fire has gone out, which reminds 
us to remark, that, when he was a fireman, he com- 
monly met his engine on its return home. He buys 
an umbrella after the shower is over, locks the sta- 
ble-door when the horse has been stolen, and places 
his pet flower carefully under shelter the day after 
it has been frozen. It is credibly reported of him, 
that, when he was a boy and went to school, from 
always being tardy, he began to learn the alphabet 
in the middle, and consequently found his appropri- 
ate place at the tail of every class, for which part he 
has had a strong predilection ever since. 

What Mr. Onslow's calling is, we purposely con- 
ceal, as we would say nothing to impair the benefit 
of his bad example. What method can be thought 



216 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

of to administer correction and reformation to faulty 
persons of this description, we do not know. What 
if society should instigate another individual still 
more lax and tardy than this grave offender — a 
"later" Onslow, for example — to practise upon him 
those very vexations and annoyances which he has 
been so long inflicting upon all he has had anything 
to do with ? To cure and prevent intemperance, 
the Spartans exhibited a drunkard in his beastliness. 
He who is plaguing everybody with his foibles may 
be ashamed of them perhaps when he views them in 
another. If the late Mr. Onslow can thus be cured, 
future Onslows may. 




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NEIGHBORLY COURTESY. 

HE following dogmatic correspondence will 
explain itself, and is therefore submitted to 
the public without further remark. 

Letter from Mr, Manners to Mr. Beaston. 

Sir, — It is now half-past seven on Monday 
morning, and your dog — he must be a large mon- 
ster if he is as big as his voice — has been howling; 

CD O 

in the deepest double-bass ever since six o'clock on 
Saturday night. Probably he does not relish his 
tender out -door accommodations this inclement 
weather with nothing to lie on, and a blanket of 
the same for a coverlid. How would you like it, 
pray, if you were the dog and the dog were you, for 
a little space of thirty-seven hours and a half, the 
most of it made up of frost and tempest ? Do you 
ever think of that when you push your poor beast 
out-of-doors, while it is raining knives and forks, 
but nothing for him, however, to eat with them ? 
All dogs have their day, but yours has the night, 
too ; yet never a bone big enough to stop his mouth, 



218 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

as the neighbors can testify, for a single minute 
during the last thirty-seven mortal hours. 

You have neighbors, you see, to consider, as well 
as a dumb brute, subjected to your caprice. They 
have ears yet, though they begin to suspect you 
must somehow have lost your own; for it seems 
impossible that any man would willingly suffer 
such a nuisance himself, however capable he may 
be of inflicting it on others. Where have you been 
living for the last day and two nights ? If you 
have not gone to the dogs yourself, but are actually 
in the land of the living, your ears at least must cer- 
tainly be dead, or past all surgery. 

Under this supposition the neighbors have got me 
to let you know categorically, that when they close 
their doors and shutters at night they wish to shut 
up their ears also, and do not want you or any dog 
to open them again. In the daytime, also, they 
have a desire to reserve them for the music or con- 
versation of their friends, and wholly object to 
having them filled by the ugly noises coming from 
your premises. You might as well thrust an entire 
dogwood-tree into our ears, and done with it, as to 
stuff them full of the bark. Deaf as you have 
proved yourself to be, we trust you w^ill neverthe- 
less listen to this remonstrance. If you fail us here, 
we shall try to reach you through some of your 
other senses. Your injured neighbor, 

G. Manners. 



NEIGHBORLY COURTESY. 219 

The next day, the following answer was returned 

from 

Mr. Beaston to Mr, Manners, 

Angry Sir, — I have received your snappish 
note about the dog, and cannot say I blame you 
much, though you seem deficient in philosophy. 
Your fault, however, may be that of being a young 
man, or rather green in city ways. So there is hope 
for you ; you will learn. The beauty of society is, 
that each man does what is right in his own eyes, 
and I may add, ears likewise. Som^ keep cats ; 
my next neighbor cherishes a crazy woman, who 
makes the welkin . ring, when she is in her parox- 
ysms. Another entertains the public wdth the 
vocalism of a parrot ; while you sport a piano, and 
I believe occasionally a trombone ; and the gentle- 
man just beyond certainly has a bugle and accoj'- 
dion. Now, I prefer the genuine bow-wow to any 
of the other nuisances ; and so I keep Bose chained 
in the yard to drown them. When he is visiting 
elsewhere, I stop my ears wdth cotton. This last 
specific I recommend to you ; it can ward off many 
social as well as political evils. Are you answered ? 

Why, you will find that assaults upon the ear are 
not the w^orst. Somebody will establish a pig-sty, 
or a stable against your fence, looking right into 
your back-parlor, or open a currier's shop on one 
side of your front-door, a shed for shoeing horses 



220 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

on the other, and a house or two for getting a gen- 
teel and easy, but not over-virtuous livelihood, 
directly in front. You must not think of turning 
up your pure and classic nose at these impurities, 
but defend yourself by another, and learn to take 
snuff without delay. Filtliy streets, cesspools, leaky 
gas-pipes, slaughter-houses, and reeking pot-houses, 
you may then pass without annoyance. If any one 
thinks that deadening the sensibility to evil does 
not remove it, I have nothing to say ; I am not a 
reformer, bu^ only a man of the world, who seeks 
to shirk what he does not know how, and is unwill- 
ing, if he did, to take the trouble, to remedy. 

If you live long, — I know you must be a youth, 
— you will do as I do : let every one do as he likes, 
and take care to get out of the way. If any fellow 
fires balls out of an air-gun for amusement in the 
streets, you must dodge. Take it for granted that 
just as you attempt to cross a thoroughfare, the 
driver of a cart will give his horse a chirrup and a 
cut in order to run over you, or spatter you with 
mud. If you see a load of calves piled up three 
feet high in a wagon, with their heads dangling 
over the raves against the wheels, or a lot of sheep 
with their four legs tied into one, and thrown into 
a burning sun, or on the frozen or snowy ground for 
hours, it is no concern of yours ; it is the way. All 
you have to do is to wink, and these cruelties dis- 



NEIGHBORLY COURTESY. 221 

appear in a moment. That is what eyelids are 
given for. The old law maxim, when translated, 
has it, " Not to appear is the same as not to exist." 
For this reason it is no sort of matter that the cattle 
and sheep sold weekly in the New York market 
have nothing to eat for several days previous to 
being slaughtered, and consequently come near 
dying of starvation. Few know the fact, and so it 
is of no consequence in the least. As I despair of 
getting back to my dog again after wandering so far, 
I believe you must take this for an answer from your 
very indifferent neighbor, A Beaston. 

The reply to this letter has not come to hand ; 
but it is easy to be seen there must have been one, 
because a disinfecting agent for social vices is a very 
different thing from one that only palliates, covers 
them up, or ignores them. An individual has no 
right to defend himself against one nuisance by 
making another equally outrageous. He that keeps 
a cur is said to be exposed to be first bitten if he 
should happen to go mad ; so he who unfeelingly 
inflicts discomfort on a neighbor will probably 
suffer for it as much himself in the end. The 
wretch who is deaf to the cries of a dog, or is capa- 
ble of abusing a horse or sheep, cannot possess the 
feelings of humanity for a fellow-creature, much 
less any genuine Christian philanthropy. If we 



222 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

were to express our real sentiments with respect to 
Mr. Beaston and such as he, we should be apt to 
say that it would be no more than justice and perhaps 
to the advantage of both, if he and his dog were 
occasionally to change places. There is nothing 
like actual experience to impress instruction. 






QUIDDLING. 

E once knew a gentleman whose favorite 
interrogatory phrase was, " How goes the 
enemy ? " meaning time. And in fact, 
that precious friend of man is treated as if he were 
the worst of enemies, to be abused, killed, got rid 
of in some way, by some artifice or deception. 
Among the ingenious contrivances to this effect, 
one of the most successful hitherto discovered 
is undoubtedly that known by the name of Quid- 
DLING. If " Procrastination is the thief of Time," 
Quiddling is its assassin. Where a man only 
puts off the performance of something an hour or 
a day, there is still an opportunity left to do some 
other act in the mean while. He may be said to 
treat time politely, as an acquaintance or a compan- 
ion, according to the world's fashion, which exacts 
only the semblance, not the substance of a bene- 
faction. But the Quiddler cannot, by anybody's 
ethics, be taken for a friend of time. He kills him. 
For, while madam or sir is annihilating the golden 
moments by a destructive mixture of worthless alloy, 



224 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

tliey cannot, like the procrastinator, be doing any- 
thing else. 

And what is quiddling, pray ? "I don't re- 
member," says one, " to have heard it enumerated 
among the mortal sins, as you make it when you 
charge the offender to be guilty of murder." We 
will tell you what it is. It is spending five minutes 
in doing a thing "just so," when the variation of a 
hair's-breadth would make no difference. It is wast- 
ing a quarter of an hour before the glass to adjust a 
curl, or give a graceful turn or color to a mustache. 
It is the consumption of a whole forenoon to dress 
for a walk, or of an entire afternoon to get ready 
for an evening party. This consumption of time 
can boast of more victims than the more talked-of 
one of the lungs. He who is forever getting ready 
to do something, and never does it, is a quiddler. 
Life, as some live it, is an enormous preface to a 
meagre work not finished, sometimes not begun. 

If this matter were viewed as seriously as it 
ought, there might be as pathetic a song written on 
quiddle, quiddle, quiddle, as on "work, work, work." 
A poor laborer is waiting for his breakfast ; how 
lamentably the good housewife spins round and 
round, cutting all manner of figures, but not cutting 
up the bread, nor ham. Here is a pretty fellow 
who takes a quarter of an hour to tie his cravat, a 
quarter to put on his coat, double that time to brush 



QUIBBLING. 225 

his hair, pull on his gloves, and so on. If he has a 
letter to despatch, he is so tedious in selecting the 
paper and pen, and so shockingly nice and prosy in 
its composition, and so curiously particular and slow 
in affixing an appropriate, but ten to one a mistaken 
and fantastic seal, that the mail starts off without it. 

This habit is very costly in more ways than one. 
None, therefore, but rich people can afford to be 
quiddlers. It is a luxury which, like the dyspepsia 
and gout, poor folks must not think of enjoying, 
any more than the privilege of lying abed till nine or 
ten, then toying an hour, as some hygienists recom- 
mend, over breakfast, two hours over dinner, an- 
other over a third, and perhaps a fourth meal ; thus 
reducing the definition of a human being to one 
who spends all his time in eating, sleeping, and 
dressing;, and the remainder in drinkino;. 

It is a sad misfortune to an author, or an artist, if 
the spirit of quiddling once insinuates itself. We 
cannot stop to relate its mischiefs, nor how it injured 
Akenside's " Pleasures of the Imagination," and 
drove Allston to paint half a dozen " Belshazzar's 
Feasts " one over the other, some worse and some 
better than the fragment finally left ; which was 
made the fragment it is by quiddling. 

If husband and wife are sinners in this respect 
alike, time ambles smoothly enough ; but to no 
purpose. If one alone is guilty, the yoke is carried 

15 



226 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

unevenly, and trouble ensues. It has been said 
already, that quiddling is an expensive pleasure. 
One instance must suffice, and conclude this dis- 
sertation. A few weeks ago the followino; scene 
occurred : " Are you coming, my dear ? I shall be 
late." " Yes, husband, I shall be ready in a minute. 
I have only my hat to put on." That was true ; 
it had been equally true for full twenty minutes 
since she began to do it. Again the husband, 
" Come, come, wife, really I must go." *' Almost 
ready," blandly replied the lady in the quietest 
tones. " Jeanette, positively I '11 go, can't stop an- 
other second," and the front-door was heard to 
open, before which the carriage had been waiting 
five-and-forty minutes, during most of which time 
the lady had been hard at work in drawing on her 
gloves and adjusting her bonnet, for all the rest of 
her rig was completed before. On hearing the 
opening of the door, she was aware the case was 
pressing, so began to move down-stairs gently, look- 
ing extremely nice, but not so tasteful in some of 
her arrangements as they were thirty minutes 
before she had altered them for the worse. At 
length they were off, and arrived in Wall Street 
just in time for the husband to learn that the sub- 
scription-books for a certain stock, which we shall not 
mention, had been closed, pursuant to previous 
notice, just six minutes and a half. Yesterday, he 



QUIDDLING. 227 

might have sold the sliares reserved for him to the 
last moment at two thousand dollars advance. A 
costly hat, and an expensive wearer of it ! But the 
wealthy have indulgences that others know not of, 
" and don't want to," somebody, looking over my 
shoulder, says. 






TflE UNKNOWN MAN. 

CONSCIOUSNESS of celebrity sends an 
exquisite tingling through the veins. All 
men, and some women, feel this delicious 
fever of the pulse. The thirst for fame, even of the 
lowest grades, is so intense in many as to make them 
totally unscrupulous about its quality, or their title 
to it. To them a counterfeit is just as good as any, 
provided it will pass. If they can get the credit, 
no matter for the substance. Reputation is every- 
thing, desert nothing. Still worse ; bad fame to 
them is better than none at all, and to be cursed 
by every lip is preferable to not being mentioned 
at all. 

But the delight of living unknotvn is not so gen- 
erally admitted. Still it has some advantages. A 
young traveller in Europe enjoys the sweet immu- 
nity of secrecy among thronging millions. The 
espionage of home weighs no longer on the freedom 
of his heart. No eye of recognition is turned tow- 
ards him. There is no one to dart the glance that 
checks the spontaneous wish, as it is bursting into 



THE UNKNOWN MAN. 229 

action, or hush back into silence the half articulated 
word. The apprehension of the possible presence 
of an observer ceases ; and the muscles of confor- 
mity, caution, and hypocrisy, enjoy at last a holiday, 
and, relaxed and idle, fall asleep, for want of prov- 
ocation. Such perfect isolation is delightful, but 
quite impracticable where the most distant suspicion 
lurks that one acquaintance can possibly intrude. 

Having made by travel this valuable discovery, 
the next thing is to render the beatitude perpetual. 
This will, indeed, appear almost a duty, on consid- 
ering the sharp thorns which a love of distinction 
has planted in the breast, and the terrible crops of 
evil they have produced to wound it. If this briery 
harvest could only be removed from men's paths, 
what a glorious thing it would be to live ! We 
should walk then perpetually on roses. The liistory 
of man would be cut down from its thousand vol- 
umes folio to a single one no bigger than the " Pil- 
grim's Progress." Much gall and sulphate of iron 
would be saved, and rags, decaying and dropping 
off as now from paupers' backs, where they have 
been doing good service, would not undergo a 
resurrection in millions of books, where they are 
working mischief. Authors would then be happy 
in solitary contemplation on their immense geniuses, 
and try to he what they have fancied and described. 
If the race of Unknown men and women should 



230 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

chance to multiply to mucli extent, the importation 
of French frippery would fall off sadly, aind opera- 
boxes become what booths are after Vanity Fair is 
over. 

What a world of trouble does the Unknown Man 
escape ! Nobody plagues him for his autograph, or 
certificates of the merits of cough-candy. No im- 
pertinent fellow sends him a letter telling him that 
he is a scoundrel or traitor to his country, obliging 
him at the same time to pay double postage for the 
information. The Unknown Man, secure in his 
panoply of nothingness, defies the cut of an im- 
pudent coxcomb of either sex, if such a creature 
can maintain a claim to any sex at all. Besides a 
material economy in hats, the multitude of fibs and 
maudlin compliments he shuns from not encoun- 
tering a lady acquaintance is perfectly prodigious. 
Never invited to public dinners, he is entirely guilt- 
less of the silly speeches delivered there, or of far- 
cical letters apologizing for an absence that was 
expected and counted on. His name is not found 
upon electoral and jury lists, and so he is not pes- 
tered about his vote, nor fined for not spending a 
week in settling the difficulties of other people, 
when it has been the study of his lifetime to avoid 
any of his own. Quack and humbug handbills, 
which penetrate everywhere, like bad news and 
odors, fail to reach him, for his name cannot for- 



THE UNKNO WN MAN. 231 

tunately be discovered in the directory. Nobody 
asks him to head a subscription for getting Emer- 
son's Essays translated into the Enghsh tongue, nor 
to sign a petition for the abolition of the potato rot 
on one side of thirty-six and a half degrees, or the 
social rot upon the other. 

Having no reputation, he is not compelled, like 
authors and single ladies who are troubled with a 
surplus, to prosecute perpetually for slander to 
preserve it. He snaps his fingers at Mrs. Candor 
and Mrs. Charity, whose powers he thinks very 
highly of, but who cannot, let them do their best, 
by any kind of whispering, backbiting, or innuendo, 
make out to take away a character which one never 
had. There is, therefore, great comfort in being 
little. Such a man may cock his hat, and set the 
world at defiance ; for the police can no more take 
hold of him than of a jug without a handle. 

He is not obliged to buy a pew in the broad-aisle 

of the distinguished Dr. 's church, or go to any 

one on Sunday, if he does not wish to, any more 
than the reverend clergy do themselves, when on 
their periodic European travels for their health, — 
an article which a thorough experience on their part 
has discovered to be best obtained where beauty, 
wealth, refinement, and the fine arts most abound. 

He can speak of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster 
without fear of party whippers-in. If he chooses, 



232 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

he ma}^, without loss of caste, decline to cover one 
of his extremities with French hoots, or line the 
other with European affectation ; and can enjoy the 
privilege of using the old, hlunt, honest Saxon style 
and manners, without first running them through a 
Gallic strainer. Being nohody, of course he can 
send an answer to a bore " that he is not at home," 
without a lie. Not the least of his good fortune is 
that of not being forced to dance with a rich dowdy, 
nor invited to indorse a speculator's note to the 
bank. No pickpocket asks him to be his bail, and 
the honor of suffering as surety for a political de- 
faulter is denied him. 

Invulnerable being ! He passes among man- 
traps thickly set by the artful sex, and yet comes 
away unhurt ; for it takes the weight of gold to 
spring them. How happy ! He has only to write 
a successful tragedy, and he becomes at once the 
" Great Unknown," and enjoys the secret mightily. 
Should he happen to be hanged at last, he will pass 
mysteriously away, like the Man in the Iron Mask, 
and his relations will be forever spared any uncom- 
fortable sensation about the throat, whenever hemp 
happens to be mentioned. When he dies he will 
take his name along with him, of course. In this 
he differs from the ivould he great and little immor- 
tals, who leave theirs behind to be kicked about a 
little while, and then sent after them. 



THE UNKNOWN MAN. 233 

The gentleman I have been describing received 
the other day the following epistle. I ought to add 
that he made immediately the acquaintance of the 
honest writer. 

" Sir, — I have been your next-door neighbor for 
the last five years, and must do you the justice to 
acknowledge that I have never heard your name 
once mentioned nor yourself in any way alluded to 
in all that time. This is, therefore, necessarily ad- 
dressed to you as No. 196. I suppose that I ought 
to ask forgiveness for recognizing your existence 
even now ; but I promise not to do it again as long 
as I live, should you continue as deserving of ob- 
scurity as at present. But it was impossible wholly 
to withhold the credit due you for being so shining 
an example of a purely negative quantity, hitherto 
imagined, indeed, by mathematicians, but not actu- 
ally exemplified before. Your position is certainly 
a happy one, since you can cut a figure without 
exciting envy, because that figure is a cipher. Your 
name, in consequence, has fortunately not been 
mixed up in the newspapers with those of pill- 
makers, pickpockets, great criminals, little politi- 
cians, philanthropists on a small scale, defaulters on 
a large one, and all the quacks, hacks, and dealers 
in everlasting clacks about blacks, to which may be 
added, by w^ay of postscript, distinguished actors on 
the stage, and unpitied sufferers in pits and boxes, in- 



234 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

ventors of fancy shirts for those who can buy them, 
and verbose preachers of patience and endurance 
to those who cannot, but are obhged by poverty to 
make shifts for themselves. 

" With sincere congratulations on your insig- 
nificance, I am. Sir, your unknown correspondent, 
and intend always to remain so, 

" Frank Freespeech." 




JESTS AND JESTING. 




ESTS, notwithstanding their name, are 
very serious things, we assure you ; though 
they are trifles light as air, their manufac- 
ture is no joke, we are told. They must be thrown 
off, like French dancing, with a smile, and an air of 
ease and grace, though their original birth must 
without doubt have its severe labor-pains. We say 
original, because there are second-hand dealers in 
them, as well as in old clothes ; there are smiling, 
oily chapmen, and profiters by other people's toil. 

Be so good as to turn your mind to the subject, 
and reflect what a jest really is. Like Dean Swift's 
leg of mutton, it must comprise the essence of many 
excellent things in philosophy and life, — the fruit 
of a happy faculty, improved by experience and 
study. Think not that the sudden flash that star- 
tles you is manufactured out of nothing. It comes 
from invisible, accumulated treasures, like the light- 
ning which seems without either effect or cause in 
the summer evening sky. However much a hon- 
mot may cost the thinking faculty to invent, it must 



236 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

come to the listener's ear with the same apparent 
ease as sunshine to his eye, without a visible effort 
from any quarter. Tom Moore, being compli- 
mented on the extreme facility as w^ell as felicity of 
composition apparent in his verses, answered : those 
few lines you praise so much as having dropped 
from the pen with as little effort as an apple from a 
tree, when it is ripe, cost me days to mould into 
their present shape. 

Such is one class of jests ; and they may well 
enough be styled Sheridan jests, to commemorate 
the way in which that eminent wit was in the habit 
of preparing his admirable impromptus. There is, 
however, another kind of the same genus, which 
really come and go, like the old woman's soap, in a 
manner not to be accounted for. The brains where 
they are engendered need to be jostled, though ever 
so little, and presto ! out issues a jeu d^ esprit, such 
a kaleidoscope of ideas ! They are really agreeable 
and striking, but obey no known laws. Such a 
brain possesses an infinite variety of modifications, 
but is not master of its own creations. They are 
merely born to it, not made by it ; they come, and 
the thing that comes is a come-by-chance. Con- 
sequently, the owner of such an occiput is not 
fairly an accountable being, — in the matter of his 
jokes, we mean. He cannot help them. He does 
not set his brain in motion ; it moves itself, and 



JESTS AND JESTING. 237 

therefore is frequently out of proper tune and sea- 
son. Such a fellow conceives jests at a funeral of 
a friend, almost as freely as at a marriage or the 
club-room. Sometimes he gives them utterance 
without a thought : he regrets and is ashamed of 
it ; but there they are, and he cannot always help 
it. 

This natural jester consequently makes enemies, 
— more than the Sheridan wit, because his ebulli- 
tions are not under his control. Being; as little 
under his control as a spirited horse, his spontaneous 
wit runs away with his rider frequently, and does 
much mischief, for which in reality he ought to 
be no more accountable than Virgil's cows, who 
used to be fecundated at certain seasons with the 
West wind ; or Congress- water for its gas ; and 
not so much as a poor fellow whose head-piece has 
given way under a shower of grape-juice. For in 
the latter case, the man was the real author of his 
own fortune ; the other foible may be traced back to 
nature. That man was brought into this breathing 
world without his knowledge or consent, with a 
brain which could not help its comical combinations 
any more than the prism can on the other hand 
avoid its refraction of the component rays of light. 

It is a common saying, that jests break no bones. 
That may be, but still do worse ; for they may, and 
frequently do, wound the feelings, and break the 



238 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

ties of friendship. A custom of jesting may gain 
the reputation of wit in society, but cause the loss 
of its respect. It has impeded and not unfrequently 
entirely prevented the success in life of the most 
brilliant intellects. Whether the habit of cracking 
jokes is looked upon as connected with breaking 
promises we do not know ; but it seems to imply 
frailty of some sort, and volatility, which may run 
from the head to the habits, and contaminate the 
character by making it as unstable and fluctuating 
as the wit. 

And now what would you have ? You cry down 
a nimble playfulness of the fanc}^ ; w^ould you have 
a young fellow as dull and serious always as an 
oyster, so that he may be the better liked ? No, not 
so. He may be a buffo sometimes ; but a buffoon 
never. He may show that he can be frolicksome, 
ingenious, and even fantastical in brain-work, if he 
pleases ; yet he is never to forget that these must 
be exceptions from his general state of mind. 
The background of his character must be serious 
and reflectincr. If a man is found to be ever crack- 
ing witticisms, the common inference, and a just one 
too, will be, that his brain is cracked to quite as 
great an extent as his jokes. 















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R 


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^^M 




SUGAR AND VINEGAR IN MAN. 

IROM thorough investigations the following 
conclusions have been gathered : That 
sugar is a normal product in man ; that it 
is secreted in the liver, and that this is a normal 
function of that organ. The source of its supply- 
is from nitrogenized elements, and the food furnishes 
it to the system. All this we find in a medical 
work. We propose to add to it a fact not dis- 
covered by chemical anaylsis or microscopic examin- 
ation, but by dint of experience, and observations 
of the naked eye, without glasses. The human 
system produces vinegar as well as sugar ; we might 
add gall too, but that is reserved for another occa- 
sion. Our attention is now restricted to the acid in 
human nature. 

Persons enough may be found, no doubt, who are 
skeptical of the sweet said to be discovered in the 
liver, or elsewhere ; but we should hke to see one 
who questions the fact that men's faces are frequent- 
ly full of vinegar. Neither is that all ; for, not- 
withstanding the liver distils sugar, it cannot be 



240 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

denied that there are other organs where the 
acetous fermentation is constantly going on, from 
which any quantity of the best of vinegar — not the 
New York grocer's drug of that name — may be 
obtained. In truth, a man may be regarded as a 
hufre vineo-ar-cruet, as well as a sugar-bowl. These 
two ingredients are laid up in his system to be 
used from time to time as flavor for actions and con- 
versations. 

These sweets and acids require only to be dexter- 
ously distributed to constitute a piquant character, 
and a not unpleasant companion. When inter- 
course becomes rather flat and stale, it imparts to it 
an agreeable relish and helps to wake up drowsy 
people, if a scruple or two of sharp acid be dropped 
into the dish of discourse. And so, when crab- 
sticks prevail inordinately in your club or associa- 
tion, to introduce a real sugar-cane of a man among 
them, full of the juice of love and kindness, has an 
admirable effect. We have known the experiment 
to work almost a miracle. Every one of the crab- 
bed sticks, as if ashamed of himself, would try to 
appear as genial and melting as his saccharine 
brother. It was a failure, it is true ; but if they 
possessed not his rich flavor and fatness, their acidi- 
ties were considerably mollified, which was a clear 
gain. 

But it will not do to have too many vinegar- 



SUGAR AND VINEGAR IN MAN. 241 

bottles in society. It is to be feared they are already 
too numerous for the sugar-canes. Under this im- 
pression, and apprehending that the disproportion is 
increasing, we have engaged some chemists, partic- 
ularly those who are distinguishing themselves by 
doing so much to fertilize our soils and improve our 
candies, to try and see what discoveries can be 
effected in the human microcosm. They have been 
especially enjoined to inquire, if other organs beside 
the liver do not yield sugar. Our own opinion is, 
that the heart ought to be the most abundant pro- 
ducer of sugar in the whole organism. And we 
are sure of one thing, which is, that however small 
or large the quantity might be from that pure source, 
the real value of it would far exceed that of all 
the other organs of the body put together. 



16 






THE PLAUSIBLE MAN. 

HERE are downright persons, and what is 
better, there are also upright. Between 
these is still another class, the resultant of 
the two, who may be called diagonal men. When 
one hears of anybody, before unknown, he naturally 
desires for information how he dresses, how he looks. 
The diagonal man, being the resultant of the two 
forces, is of course a progress man ; but it must be 
acknowledged, that, as is apt to be the case with 
such people, he is progressive in the direction of his 
own interests. But we must not forget to mention 
how you may know him, should you happen some 
day to meet him as you turn a corner. 

His hair is inclined to lankness ; very rarely, per- 
haps never, curls ; for that property implies crispness, 
and a certain dryness, insinuating that the wearer 
himself may, from the attrition of his dry qualities, 
flash suddenly into a pun. This the plausible man, 
for your diagonal is very plausible, never does. He 
is too oily for that. We will not assert that the 
plausible man's hair is always oily, we must first 



THE PLAUSIBLE MAN. 243 

ask Dr. Redfield, but we are certain that his tongue 
is. We will not give that up for Dr. Redfield, nor 
Mr. Fowler neither. His words are smooth and 
sweet, implying an extraordinary natural organ, 
which art, equal at least to that of 2i prima donna, 
has wonderfully improved, and constant practice 
kept well lubricated. One can never mistake that 
downcast, half sheepish, half foxy look ; demure, 
yet expressing in very articulate dumb-show a con- 
viction that his perfect disinterestedness and gener- 
osity are by no means understood. Yes, that is he. 
The plausible man dresses himself in the most 
studied and careful half-quakerish style possible, 
and then wonders he is not taken for the model of 
simplicity and naturalness that he pretends to be. 

Thus does the plausible man look. We do not 
inquire what he does ; for he does nothing ; the 
man is made to talk ; that is his mission (to use the 
original expression) in the world. He talks. Ye 
p-ods ! how he can talk ! There is no occasion that 
anybody else in the universe should ever say an- 
other word. WJien the plausible man opens his 
oily mouth, and begins to speak, " let no dog 
bark," and all creation beside be silent, and, like 
the Roman mimes, occupy themselves in making 
gestures to such an accomplished actor. No 
matter what the subject is, anything or nothing, 
he is equal to it ; whether it is of a domestic 



244 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

nature, or turns on travel abroad, he is perfectly 
at home. 

Plausible men shine everywhere, — even where 
other people generally look dull ; in afflictive dis- 
pensations (of others) and at funerals. But if 
they have what are sometimes denominated strong 
points, these lie, perhaps, in their peculiar qualifica- 
tions for Wall Street and Washington, — we mean 
for pecuniary and political science. Talk, glib 
and oily, everybody knows, is the motive power in 
both. There is, indeed, no substitute. This is a 
postulate. 

Every financier and politician begins with it, as 
the grammarian with his alphabet. Though an in- 
credibly active and persistent force which can never 
be superseded, still we do not claim it to be the act- 
ual secret of the veritable perpetual motion. Talk 
is only conditionally that power. We believe it 
would be kept up by these fair-seeming plausible 
men in financiering, and in congress, till their 
objects were accomplished, though the world might 
end first ; but in real practice, such men always 
attain their objects, and so the wordy motion ends. 

As to the designs of this class of individuals, for 
they always have them, and pretty well defined ones 
too. They are not generally the worst that might 
be mentioned. Such persons are not cruel. They 
wish neither to rob, nor murder, nor in fact to do 



THE PLAUSIBLE MAN. 245 

anything by force. If they have any thirst for 
blood, the leech is a proper type for the propensity, 
and not the tiger. But in fact they do not desire 
the harm of any one whatever for the harm's sake, 
but only as a means of good to themselves. They 
entertain no ill-will against any of their brethren of 
the race ; on the contrary, they have a positive lik- 
ing, if not for your person itself, at any rate for the 
property, power, or other advantage that belongs to 
it. While they are squeezing out of society and 
you all that is practicable, they wish you both well 
with what is left ; and will sometimes, like the 
generous highwayman, or the equally generous 
Jenny Lind, make you a present of a small part of 
what they have taken from you. This last ma- 
noeuvre is the highest manifestation of the plausi- 
ble man. 

The plausible man wishes well to all mankind ; 
especially to himself, as one of that great multitude 
whom he is best acquainted with, and particularly 
attached to. In accomplishing the object of bene- 
fiting himself, he finds from long and sage experi- 
ence that the readiest way is, when thus engaged, 
to imitate the ventriloquist, and direct the notice 
of observers to a distant spot as the scene of action, 
while all his energies are in the mean while con- 
centrated with preternatural intensity in his own 
person. 





PLEASURE OF BEING A GRANDFATHER. 

T does not belonsf to us to choose our lot in 
life ; if it did, that of the Grandfather 
sliould be ours. For just consider, if you 
please, what the term implies. It may conjure up in 
some minds, for aught we know, a rheumy-eyed old 
man, troubled with catarrh and cough, with shrunk 
shanks a world too narrow for his pantaloons, smell- 
ing strongly of tobacco and something worse per- 
haps, with everything dead within him but his 
impatient and choleric temper. This is one grand- 
father to be sure ; but there are two to every family, 
and it is the other one we mean. He is not a very 
old gentleman after all ; and might pass for a young 
one often, if he chose, without a discovery of the 
counterfeit, though there is a risk of being found 
out on trial, as our apparent 36's were in the war 
with England, as 74's in disguise. 

But one of the pleasures of being a grandfather 
consists in his having been a son. He remembers 
when he was a rosy-faced, curly-headed boy, sliding 
on the ice, or sailing his tiny fleet of vessels in a 



PLEASURE OF BEING A GRANDFATHER. 247 

gutter. Some can go farther back, and recollect 
how they used to climb upon the lap and shoulders 
of their beautiful mothers, and kiss them and their 
handsome young aunts with their lovely compan- 
ions, by the score. The celebrated Fisher Ames, 
one of the most eloquent and amiable men of our 
country, who died about fifty years ago in Dedham, 
must have been able to recall scenes still more inter- 
esting, for he was not weaned from his mother till 
he was eleven, and he entered Harvard College in 
one year after. These are charming warm pictures 
to carry with one into the frosty January of old age, 
to play around the heart and fancy, when they have 
lost the capacities or relish for new enjoyments, and 
prefer old images to fresh realities. So, you see, the 
grandfather possesses a youthftil world within him 
in addition to the outward one, as it appears through 
the medium of his failing vision. 

But the grandfather has also had the pleasure of 
being a father. To qualify him for that relation, he 
has, or ought to have, felt the soul-subduing passion, 
which alone exemplifies the much talked of univer- 
sal empire. Of course, he possessed, or thought he 
did, which is the same thing, a gem of beauty in his 
wife ; and if " a thing of beauty is a joy forever," 
then the grandfather is certainl}^ not deficient in 
materials for comfort. The fatherly period is the 
time for activity, business, and accumulation, and we 



248 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

have heard it said that an individual enjoys the get- 
ting, more than the spending of his property. This 
may be true, so far as the identical individual is con- 
cerned. The question in our mind is, whether he 
enjoys the acquisition of money, better than his heir 
does its expenditure. If he does, all we have to say 
is, that a prosperous, money-getting father and his 
prodigal son are a couple of the very happiest fel- 
lows in Christendom. Whatever share of happi- 
ness, however, ought of right to be allotted to each 
of these relations, the grandfather, it is obvious, 
knows all about it, and must enjoy a lively recollec- 
tion of both. By a kind of descent, which travels 
backward and upward, he may be said to inherit 
the pleasures of the father and the son by recollect- 
ing them. Thus, as the son is emphatically said to 
be the father of the man, they both together must 
of course be the grandfather of the same individ- 
ual. 

But the felicity of the grandfather is not all a 
thing of memory. A great deal of it is a fresh 
achievement of his old age. What ! is there no de- 
light in having half a dozen little funny-eyed grand- 
children chasing the blue devils out of every room 
in the house with their sunny faces ? Is it nothing 
to have some of them pulling at every limb of your 
body, beside an extra one swinging from your hair, 
or seeing whether there is not room for him in your 



PLEASURE OF BEING A GRANDFATHER. 249 

pockets, or where the hole in your ear goes to ? 
Surely the grandfather's hat and spectacles are be- 
coming to that chubby fellow, who is so attentively 
reading the morning's newspaper, which the old 
gentleman has been looking for, a quarter of an hour 
in vain. What if he can't go out without his hat 
and cane, which one of the boys is playing horse 
with in the yard, nor stay at home without his spec- 
tacles and newspaper ; is he not a happy man in 
being thus used up for the gratification of his 
offspring? We know it must be so ; and that the 
sweets and satisfactions of life are extracted from its 
irregularities and odd humors, just as pearls are 
made out of the disorders in the oyster. Think of 
this, old bachelors, and believe that the plagues 
which others cause you are fruitful in good, from 
which if you are exempt, suicidal plagues will spring 
up within. Between these two there is as great a 
difference as having one's house warmed by the nat- 
ural heat of the sun's rays or by setting its own 
furniture on fire. 

The greatest drawback from the satisfaction of 
the grandfather must arise from the consciousness 
that it has not long to last. From what we have 
remarked of men advanced in life, we mean of old 
men who are also old gentlemen, we think with 
Cicero, that they possess more of the elements of 
contentment than persons at any other period of 



250 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

life. But there is a canker which mars all its quiet 
satisfaction, and that is, its instability. This was a 
knotty difficulty to surmount, if we remember right- 
ly, by the philosophic Roman. But we can do now 
what was impossible in the age of Tully. If a good 
man and a Christian, the aged person may derive 
hope and comfort, not draw a gloomy apprehen- 
sion, from the prospect of his dissolution. Such 
an event will improve his condition, not impair it, 
by introducing him to a sphere where advanced 
stages of excellence and felicity will exist, but 
where everything belonging to old age will be un- 
known. 



OLD AGE. 




N aged man with silver hair, sitting at the 
root of a branching oak that had seen a 
hundred winters, and was now in the 
autumn shedding its century leaves, — this is a 
striking subject for the pencil, though we do not 
remember to have seen it painted. He is looking 
upward, while the foliage has fallen around to 
cherish and protect the young acorns, which are 
destined to perpetuate the race of the patriarch of 
the forest. But no canvas can set forth the thoughts 
and feelings of the old man, as he revolves in his 
mind the various fortunes, gales, soft breezes, fair 
weather and foul, that have wafted him hither, from 
his earliest boyhood. In the course of his long 
wanderings, he has taken deep draughts of pleasure 
and joy. He has also known full well the bitterness 
of misfortune in the deprivation of property, or the 
loss of some who were very dear, perhaps of both. 
And though when his blood ran hotly through his 
veins in the prime of manhood, he could enjoy 
keenly, yet never perhaps has he known a se- 
rener and more perfect happiness than he feels at 



252 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

this moment on the verge of the grave, among the 
fadinor foliaoe of the ancient oak. 

Such a man, during his long pilgrimage, must 
have seen much sorrow ; for every year, as it scores 
its passage on our foreheads, at the same time pours 
another drop of bitter into our enjoyments. Yet he 
was never less vulnerable to sorrow than now. As 
he descends into the vale of years, the light of com- 
mon joys may become less bright, and his horizon 
may be diminished. But his spiritual vision be- 
comes clearer. As he looks up through the naked 
branches of the old oak spreading over his head, 
and finds his sight unobstructed by the thick sum- 
mer foliage that once shut out the sky from his 
view ; now, in his old age, when his hair has grown 
thin, and his worldly honors have fallen around him, 
he can see in the open prospect the firmament of 
heaven glittering with inumerable hosts of celestial 
lights. What Ossian sung of the sun maybe said 
of this ancient man, " The oaks of the mountains 
shall fall ; the mountains themselves decay with 
years ; the ocean shrink and grow again ; the moon 
herself be lost in heaven ; — but thou shalt be for- 
ever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy 
course. When the world shall be dark with tem- 
pests ; when the thunder shall roll and lightning 
fly ; thou shalt look in thy beauty from the clouds, 
and laugh at the storm." 



TO MY MOTHER, ON HER ATTAINING THE 
AGE OF EIGHTY-EIGHT YEARS. 

All day the traveller sees the mountain tower 
Along his path, and still at evening's hour 

It cuts the distant sky ; 
The forest wild is past, the well-tilled plain, 
The river, spire, and the abodes of men, 

Are sunk below his eye : 

Yet still that dearly loved, familiar sight. 
As fast around him falls the gathering night, 

His saddening bosom cheers ; 
Still brave Monadnock rears his changeless form, 
Unmindful if the day shall shine or storm, 

Or close in smiles or tears. 

And such, dear mother, have you been to me, 
From even the eat-liest dawn of memory. 

Near sixty years agone ; 
In this long pilgrimage, unseen or seen. 
The thought of you has my horizon been 

In airy circle drawn. 

Who ebe but you can waken memory's power. 
That links my age with childhood's transient hour, 
And brings again the boy? 



254 A UTUMN LEA VES. 

This spell you can create for me, but who 
Shall e'er the days of youth to you recall, • 
And echo back their joy ? 

Age is unlovely, yet in you how blest ! 
In tresses white and spotless vii-tue drest, 

As winter's heaven-dropped snow ; 
Unsoiled, awhile it flings abroad its light. 
Till, wasted and exhaled from mortal sight, 

It shines no more below. 

So on the verge of fourscore years and ten 
You stand in thought serene and fix your ken 

Upon a loftier sphere ; 
Where age, its journey done, its load thrown down, 
Soars up to take its everlasting crown 

Of joy without a tear. 




CHESS. 




OME time ago we found occasion to say 
something on the " Tendencies of the Game 
of Chess." The great interest felt in the 
subject, and attention paid to it at present and for 
the year past, which, owing to the triumphs of 
Morphy in Europe, and his expected return to his 
native country, will probably continue for some 
time to come, justifies inquiry, not only into its 
character as a liberal and elegant amusement, but 
also into the claims which have been set up for it 
as a powerful agent for augmenting and disciplining 
the mental faculties. That it does this for the fac- 
ulty of memory will be at once conceded. But 
how far does this agency extend? This is the 
present question. 

It is a common remark, which Franklin may 
have countenanced, that great practice and skill in 
the movement of pieces in this fascinating game 
conduce to the strengthening of the powers of rea- 
soning, and of that faculty of combination which is 
of such inestimable value to the commander of an 



256 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

army. But we conceive there is no analogy in the 
two cases. The movement in Chess is of pieces of 
absolutely certain power ; the force of every one, 
the pawn, bishop, knight, queen, and the rest, is 
definite, and perfectl}^ settled. The adversaries in 
the game are also both equally well acquainted with 
the extent of their own force and that of each 
other. Nothing is hidden, or left to conjecture. 
But in war, how different is all this ! The force 
which a general can move is of uncertain amount. 
It is still more doubtful how that of his antagonist 
compares with his own. Hence, it appears that a 
mathematical judgment, which is certain, can be 
exercised with respect to the forces of both parties 
in a game of Chess ; but in war all is conjecture, 
and whatever reasoning there is upon those matters, 
namely, the forces and movements of corps and 
squadrons, is moral reasoning, whereas the reasoning 
about the forces and movements of all the pieces 
on the chess-board is strictly mathematical, since 
they are all given and defined, as much as angles 
and lines in geometry. 

Then there are other facts which control, or 
largely affect, the fate of battles and war, that do 
not exist at all in the mimic Chess. These facts 
are not only the number and quality of the battal- 
ions, but their positions, both relatively to each 
other and to the enemy ; the time required to bring 



CHESS. 257 

them up and move them into action. These and 
similar points are all settled in Chess. Then there 
is the exceedingly important but never to be anti- 
cipated fact, how the men will behave in battle. 
Will some timidity, or more or less hesitation affect 
them ? Will they do better or worse than formerly ? 
or, if new recruits, then comes the doubt how far 
they are to be relied on. After all, how much de- 
pends on the prestige of a commander, who has 
been in a hundred battles and never once defeated ! 
A Napoleon in the immediate command would be all 
but invincible ; the sight of him, the knowledge that 
he was among them, would double the strength and 
eflPorts of an army, and would be felt like an arrival 
of a fresh reinforcement wherever he might be. 

All these circumstances, and similar ones, are to 
be calculated by a skilful general, and the accuracy 
of this judgment constitutes his greatness. It is 
obvious, we need not say, that none of them, though 
so essential with respect to the fate of a battle, ex- 
ist at all in the Chess contest. In this there is 
no room for moral calculation. All is arithmeti- 
cal, and no faculties but those of memory and 
computation have any place. Most or all of the 
problems with which the general has to struggle, 
overcome, or avoid, some of which have been men- 
tioned, are wholly unknown to the Chess-player. 
We may add to those which have been already 

17 



258 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

alluded to, his plans for subsisting his troops, the 
difficulties his opponent is likely to encounter in 
this respect, the geographical nature of the locality 
where a battle is to be brought on, the sudden and 
quick changes of the programme of the battle. The 
time in which operations are performed in war is of 
the last importance. In Chess, as every one knows, 
a player may take one minute or twenty to make 
his move in. If that amount of precious time were 
lost in battle, it is easy to see that the consequence 
would be fatal. 

In short, whatever foresight of a certain sort may 
be taught by Chess, it is clear that it is of a very 
different nature from that required by a general ; 
and its logic is not the logic of a lawyer, orator, 
nor statesman, but resembles most that of the ge- 
ometer. But generals, philosophers, and moral 
reasoners are not made great or greater by uncom- 
mon skill in the game of Chess. 



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THE SPEECH-MAKER. 



B^^^O you see that man just getting into the 
Rpfl* stage ? Aye. Very well, then you are 
^''^'''^ ' looking on one who has made a speech in 
public. Why, you don't say so ; really, and he has 
actually made a speech, has he ? How many, pray ? 
Only one. That is odd. To make a speech is a 
great affair, it is true ; but to stop there, and at- 
tempt no more, as things go, is little less than mi- 
raculous. It requires only a tongue, which most 
people have, to be able to talk in private or in 
public either, — and he who can do one tolerably, 
can do the other also, — but to be silent shows 
brains, a higher organ than the tongue. Consider 
what a restless thing the latter is, never quiet ; hung, 
as some affirm, in the middle ; tempted to action, 
like the magnetic needle, by a thousand disturbing 
forces. Truly, to make a speech is great ; but to do 
it only once is greater still. It immortalized the 
English Hamilton, surnamed the Single-Speeched, 
and deservedly. For when was it ever known that 
a man who had delivered even a bad speech ever 



260 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

failed to try again and again ? and we have known 
more than one keep on trying till they were three- 
score years and ten, with indifferent success. 

I will not take it upon me to say that the gentle- 
man who has taken his seat yonder will rest content 
with his one short effort. Oh, it was short, was it ? 
Then be assured it will not be long before you get 
another from him. In the mean time, I hopie he 
will excuse me for staring a little at such a phe- 
nomenon as a single-speech gentleman. Have you 
not observed, that your public talker will never 
give up his privilege of boring the community till 
he has shown his ability to manufacture a long 
speech ? It is a lamentable fact. But that is not 
the worst of the discovery he thus makes. Having 
found out that he can go on uttering the hundred 
thousand words of the language as long as they 
will hold out and he can stand upon his legs, a 
new desire springs up within him to gratify this 
ambition. Taciturnity will not do, as once ; that 
ice has been broken long ago, and never can be 
mended. But, alas ! a speech of ordinary length 
will never serve his purpose now. He goes stren- 
uously for length, with little regard to the other 
dimensions. The day of his shortcomings — no sin 
in him — is unfortunately over, and he has evidently 
embarked in the enterprise of discovering the longi- 
tude in language. 



TEE SPEECH-MAKER. 261 

Speech-making is the art of putting one's thoughts 
into as many words as possible. The Hebrew lexi- 
con which we studied in our college-days was a 
very thin octavo volume, not equalling the dignity 
of a respectable monthly, or even pamphlet, of these 
times. Yet it contained the elements of those in- 
spired, sublime, and tender lyrics of the King of 
Israel, and other poets of that country, which have 
roused the devotion and soothed the sorrows of all 
enlightened people since their time, for thirty cen- 
turies. This book contained but a few hundred 
words ; the last edition of Webster's dictionary 
numbers nearly one hundred thousand ! What an 
everlasting thread of sentences cannot a language- 
spinner manufacture out of these ? It requires a 
mechanical, not a mental talent. Given, a quantity 
of w^ords, how much space can they be made to 
cover ? That is the question with the speechifier ; 
just as with the goldsmith, how much wooden tim- 
ber can be gilded with a minute lump of gold. 
Homoeopathy has invaded more regions than that 
of physic. The inquiry is heard everywhere, how 
far the most insignificant means may be made to 
answer ? to what possible extent a limited quan- 
tity of ideas and provisions can be made to suffice 
in a speech or boarding-house ? Carlyle deemed 
the clothing of the physical man an ample and 
proper subject to write a book about. The art of 



262 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

cutting out and making up the drapery of thought, 
so that a man may appear to be somebody, when he 
is really only a column of more or less good words, 
deserves therefore to be cultivated, as it is, by 
thousands. It is a worthy and lucrative trade, and 
is one of our home-manufactures, which is more 
encouraged than almost any other. Hollow ware 
and books, with as little in them as the ware, can be 
imported sufficient to satisfy the pubhc wants. So, 
indeed, speeches may be, and are. But dinner- 
speeches are thought not so good, when cold, and 
therefore must have their sauce, if not their sub- 
stance, prepared at the time of consumption, or a 
little before ; sometimes a little after, according to 
report. 

It is on the occasions just hinted at, Avhen wine 
and words, not always wit, begin to flow, that 
young beginners love to make their first essays in 
oratory, which sometimes end like the first flights of 
new-fledged birds from the nest — by coming to the 
ground. But in both cases they fall upon the ten- 
der bosom of mother earth, or that of friends made 
more forbearing and good-natured by generous wine. 
Thus the first degree in verbiology is taken in this 
school, when every one is so full of good eating, 
drinking, and good-nature, as to have no room for 
anything but song and sound. Words strung to- 
gether, and jingling like bells upon the tongue, are 



THE SPEECH-MAKER. 263 

almost as certain of approbation as " the bones " and 
the banjo. 

From this cradle of the art of speaking it is only 
a step upon a level to the caucus hall. Here, the 
same love of music, with or without words, encour- 
ages the rhetorical apprentice. Have you never 
observed how exceedingly common is the narrative 
or story-telling faculty? Many of the class have 
small heads. An old adage runs thus, — 

" Great head and little wit: 
Little head and not a bit." 

Thus assigning the highest powers of intellect to 
heads of the ordinary size. Is this so ? We do not 
decide the point, because a year ago people were 
measuring skulls, and ascribing most intellect to 
Cuvier, Webster, Dupuytren, and others, till some- 
body got hold of the skull of a blockhead that was 
big enough to contain more brains than any of them. 
However that may be, it has been remarked that 
little heads and great talkers go together. We have 
known more than one such who could talk all day, 
it cannot be said without exhaustion, but without 
cessation. Such a person finally stops, but one 
cannot see why. Words are not wanting ; all in 
the dictionary may have been employed ; but they 
can be used to as good purpose again. Of ideas, 
properly belonging to the speaker, there were few 
or none at first, and so the scarcitv of them is not 



264 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

minded. The talking power is, in fact, a low faculty, 
as may be observed in Congress, and has not been 
conspicuous in the highest order of intellects. It is 
largely recollective, and found most in persons not 
original in their conceptions, but turning spontane- 
ously for nourishment to other fountains not within 
themselves. 

But look ! our one-speech gentleman is about to 
ruin his distinctive reputation. He is getting out of 

the stage and actually going into Hall, where 

they hold political assemblies. That honorable sur- 
name will be no longer his ; he will be degraded to 
the level of the chattering crew, w^ho fancy they 
discover talent by an ordinary display of one of the 
vulgar capacities of the race. 





SIC UTERE TUO, UT ALIENUM NON 
LJEDAS. — THE ACCORDION. 

|0 use one's own rights and property so as 
not to injure those of another, is a dictate 
of natural justice, a prompting of common 
politeness, and a commandment of Christianity. 
Nobody doubts the law, or its universal obhgation ; 
the difficulty is to regulate its multifarious applica- 
tions. A man has an unquestionable natural right 
to extend his arm to the utmost of its length, and 
with all the vigor he is master of ; but if he does it 
in a crowd, and happens to knock a fellow-creature 
down, he is liable for assault and battery. There is 
no trouble at all in deciding on such a case ; a man 
need not read law three years first. 

If anybody should undertake to stick the person 
of another full of pins, especially that portion of it 
denominated the ears, without his consent first had 
and obtained, what would a large majority of people 
think of the proceeding? Probably as decidedly 
objectionable and unneighborly. The general sen- 
timent would be opposed to turning any individual, 



266 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

however soft, into a pin-cushion. We will then put a 
pin in there, and go to the next case, which may 
admit a question in the minds of some. 

If an innocent gentleman, or lady, has taken it 
into his head or hand to learn to play that very 
manly, genteel, and expressive instrument, the accor- 
dion — ah ! the old imp always comes at the mention 
of his name ; we hear its sickening dulcet voice 
this very minute, repeating all the nigger-melodies 
that the universe has been nauseated with for the 
last five years. It is impossible for us to go on till 
that horrid accordion stops, which will not happen 
till bedtime, unless somebody calls and — thank 
heaven ! the bell rings, and the bellows-blower is 
summoned into the house from the piazza, where he 
nightly robs the neighborhood of quiet, and persists 
in occupying their unwilling ears with just such 
noises as he chooses to inflict upon them. This man 
arrogates the right of dictating to the whole vicinity 
what and how they shall enjoy, or rather what they 
shall suffer, every evening of the warm season of the 
year. Why, one would suppose that none but a 
dog or cat would continue obstinately to bark and 
yell contrary to the wishes of all their hearers. 
This practice cannot be properly called murder, we 
suppose, though it is making an end of our happi- 
ness and peace. If it is not homicide, it is certainly 
every other offence known to any code. It is petty 



THE ACCORDION. 267 

larceny, for it steals away our precious quiet, — 
grand larceny, in depriving us of it for a whole 
evening. Was there ever, too, a plainer case of 
assault and battery, as well as trespass quare clau- 
sum, than this wanton invasion of our castle, in its 
sleeping chambers, and cruelly wounding the ears of 
its inhabitants ? 

What possible justification can there be for this 
enormous breach of the peace ? UnwiUing to im- 
pute it to the depravity of the human heart, we are 
obliged to set it down, of course, to some imperfec- 
tion in the head. The offending party must be too 
musical, that is, possess too much ear. A super- 
fluity of ear is certainly a misfortune to any creat- 
ure. But that circumstance can be no justification 
for the infliction of its braying upon other persons, 
with a total disregard of consequences. 

It is not pleasant, we admit, in order to exempt 
such offenders from criminality, thus to charge them 
with stupidity. But how can it possibly be helped ? 
If it were the case of a tobacco consumer, simply 
puffing a quantity of nasty smoke into one's face ; or 
of a regular eater of the vermin-killing weed, gently 
depositing his saliva on your coat-tail ; or of a sweet 
girl, gracefully shaking a foot-rug from a window 
precisely over your head, on passing by a house, or, 
as you are carefully tiptoeing along, sweeping the 
dirt of the steps plump into your breeches-pocket, 



268 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

at the same time that a lady, who is meeting you, 
pokes her umbrella into your right eye ; if it were 
any, or all of these, and scores besides that might 
be mentioned, not a word should be lisped in opposi- 
tion. To such petty annoyances we are all accus- 
tomed. They are supposed, like the monopoly of 
all the best seats at a public table, and what is of 
more consequence, all the nice bits on it, to be insepa- 
rably connected, somehow or other, as Southern 
slavery is, with American liberty. They are there- 
fore borne with pleasure, as people tolerate puppies 
and poor relations, on account of their belonging to 
a rich lady, or influential family. 

But when any individual, male or female, pre- 
sumes to fill our aching ears with sounds of his own 
making, and persists in the outrage by the hour to- 
gether, — ears perhaps consecrated by the voice, the 
better part, of the divine Jenny Lind, and still 
vibrating with the precious sounds which she has 
manufactured expressly for their use at a very high 
price, — the impudence of the transaction is absolutely 
astounding. Indeed, the confidence of musicians is 
frequently amazing ; but the ignorant self-esteem, in 
particular, of this nocturnal disturber of repose and 
comfort through the medium of the accordion — we 
hate all mediums — can never be adequately de- 
scribed. One thing we would leave on record, as 
the conclusion of the matter. Let no one make the 



THE ACCORDION. 269 

silly mistake of thinking that other persons will ad- 
mire his music, conversation, or appearance, quite as 
much as he does himself. Depend upon it, nobody 
loves any noise long, that is not of his own making ; 
and every man, if his smelling-organ must be pulled, 
prefers to have it done with his owm particular thumb 
and finger. 





THERE'S LIGHT IN THE TOMB. 

A SONNET. 

With pleasure once I thought of death ; I sighed 
To close my weary eyes in sleep profound 
Upon the pleasant world, that smiled around, 
And fly to where the lost from earth abide. 
'Twas not Ambition's promises denied, 
Subduing sickness, poverty, nor pain. 
Which thus in me triumphantly defied 
The gloomy horrors of the grave's domam. 
I saw them not, or, if I did, they were 
Like ancient ruins that in moonlight lie, 
Illumed with beauty by the bright and fair, 
Who passed along them to their native sky : 
Ah ! that this momentary dream might last. 
Nor be dissolved, till life is overpast. 





A SONNET. 



Great Missionary to the human heart, 
That spirit-world, where heathen gods abound, 
Alike on Christian and on Paynim ground, 
The Gospel to this mighty waste impart. 
'T is thine to scan the soul, its joy and smart, 
See glimpses of the Infinite Profound, 
O'erwhelmed by brutish appetite around, 
And back to heaven lead man's immortal part. 
No need the tropics fiery sands to roam ; 
Lo! pagans live before thy eyes at home. 
To these dark " spirits in prison," it is thine 
To speak on themes, O Dewey, which shall fill 
Celestial natures, and with rapture thrill, 
When burning constellations cease to shine. 





THE PASTOR. 

HERE is an office that requires in the in- 
cumbent the head of Socrates and heart of 
John. 

The great are too great for it ; yet it is larger 
than the ability of any who ever held it. 

An emperor, in the interval of his insane ambi- 
tion, sighed for the peace and happiness of its lot. 

Demanding the strength of an angel, what fools 
have not rushed in to seize upon its vestments ? 

Fanaticism feels no fervor that may not at some 
time become a pastor of a Christian flock; pru- 
dence possesses not too much caution for his perpet- 
ual control. 

A pastor is not the handiwork of good or wicked 
men in lawn sleeves ; he is the child of God ; not 
made, but born. 

Many have desired to wear the crown of Jesus, 
but divested of its thorns. 

Yet some have had the courage to crucify the 
flesh ; for which a portion of them have sought a 
compensation in the increase of their pride. 



THE PASTOR. 273 

There are those who would wilhngly uphold the 
crosier, but have not the strength ; a fit trust for a 
babe in Christ, it nevertheless asks the power of a 
man, and the meekness of a disciple. 

He who seeks it for its honors, shall not find them. 
The fame of a good man, striving to approach the 
Sun of righteousness, is a shadow, which falls behind 
him, and he regards it not. 

Thousands have occupied the pastoral office ; few 
have filled it. Humility it asks for, not weakness ; 
the unction of the inner life, fountain of external 
courtesy ; yet a Christian, rather than a gentleman. 
It was not found too narrow for the soul of Jesus ; 
it sometimes dwindles to the dimensions of a child. 

Will a man not tremble to seek a living, merely, 
in a priesthood within the bosom of which his Mas- 
ter died ? 

Learning in its incumbent is not to be contemned ; 
but it becomes a noxious parasite, if suffered to ex- 
haust the oil destined also for the nourishment of 
the affections, or to overshadow the tender vines of 
the spirit. 

Let no one complain that a greater burden is laid 
upon him than he is able to bear ; it is better that 
the citadel should be unwatched, than that the war- 
der should be faithless to his post. 

What wretchedness is like his who is travelling 
away from his affections ; whose life hangs a mill- 
18 



274 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

stone on every word which he utters in the sanc- 
tuary ! 

Before he receives the Great Commission, the 
young Evangelist reads upon it the triumphs of the 
Cross, and feels the spirit of a martyr ; after it is 
given him, he finds, recorded on the other side, its 
sufferings and persecutions ; then he feels the mar- 
tyrdom of his spirit. 

Is a son of the Church preeminent for adminis- 
trative talents ? It is a good gift ; yet let him often 
remember who it was that carried the bag. 

Pulpits create a great gulf; yet sermons have 
their use. Abraham did well in preaching to the 
Rich Man ; but the disciples long to be taken, like 
Lazarus, to the preacher's bosom. The Saviour of 
the world taught much, but loved more. He was 
the companion of men and women, and took their 
little ones in his arms. 

The Church of Christ requires not a government ; 
but government stands in need of the Christian 
Church. One secularizes the clergy ; the other 
sanctifies the laity. 

Modesty of manners and opinion in a young 
minister are winning to the heart, like unconscious- 
ness of beauty in a maiden ; there are no arrows so 
resistless as those which are feathered with the bash- 
fulness of such a one. 

Heads grow weary of giving and receiving in- 



THE PASTOR. 275 

tellectual blows ; but the loving heart, though ever 
pouring out its streams, is never empty, and the 
sympathizing bosom is never tired of imbibing them, 
yet is not full. 

A minister may neither be a Griffin nor a Chan- 
ning ; still, if he possesses a true heart, he will not 
be in danger of fatiguing his flock. An affectionate 
speech has no commonplaces. 

The good pastor receives us when infants to his 
arms, and washes us with the emblematic water of 
regeneration ; at our maturity, he ratifies on earth 
our matrimonial vows, first registered in heaven ; 
stands by our bedside in the final struggle; and 
shines, like the sun within the Arctic circle, upon 
bereaved ones at the midnight of their sorrows. 

Such a servant of the Cross have I known ; such 

were , and ; but I will not name them. 

I will not ask the world to remember those who can 
never be forgotten. 




DARK CHURCHES. 




CHURCH is a place for light, its distribu- 
tion, its reception. Yet it has grown to be 
one of the darkest spots ever visited, every 
ray of sunshine being carefully excluded. In New 
York there is more than one of these wells of 
obscurity, where the worshippers stumble in the 
aisles, if not " on the dark mountains," because some 
trustee, minister, or sexton, or other, has read of the 
Cathedral's " dim, religious light." In fact, we know 
a man as well as we do ourself, who has not seen his 
own minister, while in the pulpit, for ten years past, 
though he generally goes to church twice every 
Sunday. He has learnt to tell him, as well as all 
strange preachers, by their voices. 

But it is gratifying to see, as well as hear, an in- 
dividual who is talking to you, if persuasion to right 
living is the object of the speaker. How largely 
does the expression of his eloquent countenance con- 
tribute to the impressiveness of his words ! Would 
it answer to interpose a screen of a thin board- 
partition between the preacher and his auditors? 



DARK CHURCHES. 277 

The crepuscular shadows of many places of worship 
have a not dissimilar effect. They seem to impair 
the sound of his voice ; if not, they unquestionably 
diminish its effect. It is said that a man cannot 
detect the difference between wines of different sorts, 
if he tastes them in the darkness of a cellar. How 
then can he judge correctly of a sermon delivered 
in the dark ? It has also been frequently asserted, 
and we believe with truth, that a smoker cannot 
tell, under the circumstances mentioned, whether 
the cigar in his mouth is really burning or not. 
It may be lighted, it may have gone out ; he cannot 
tell. 

We speak of social worship, as distinguished from 
solitary. We attribute to it valuable effects from 
the power of sympathy of heart with heart, mutu- 
ally helping to kindle the flame of devotion. Yet 
what influence can an assembly of worshippers ex- 
ercise over an individual, if that individual cannot 
see them ? 

Religion is not all darkness and sadness. It is 
also cheerful, bright, and hopeful. The heart re- 
quires such qualities, as well as others, in the object 
of reverence it loves to cling to. Thus the instincts 
of humanity prompted the disciples of Zoroaster and 
others to worship the sun, the fountain of light, joy, 
and hope. As far as worship can properly be made 
pleasant, that result should be thought of and 



278 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

secured. What possible good it does to put out the 
light of heaven in our places of worship, we are at 
a loss to discover. Some of the objections to it 
have been hinted. And if this were a proper sub- 
ject to be tested by ridicule, it could be easily ap- 
plied ; for certainly it is laughable for a man to be 
spouting in a dark corner to a thousand invisible 
people, in an atmosphere such as bats and owls only 
prefer. If any reason exists for such a practice, it 
must be one discernible only by those lovers of 
night. "? 





IN MEMORIAM. 

" Mortales visus medio sermone reliquit." 

October poured his yellow ray, 
The frost-stained leaf was hanging still ; 

Our thoughts were grave, our words not gay, 
For she who clasped my arm was ill. 

Just then, we saw upon the right 

A field devoted to the dead. 
It was abandoned, — hideous sight ! 

Disgusting taste, inspiring dread. 

A glance was all ; she turned around, 

And, gazing sadly in my face, 
Not there, she breathed, that trampled ground, 

Away from hence my body place. 

Oh blessed health, without which all 
That we enjoy, or sigh for, dies, — 

Why comes it at the wretch's call. 
And from the young and lovely flies ? 

Poor wand'rer for that priceless boon ! 

Far from her kindred, country, friends, 
Hope waves her on, but, ah ! how soon 

The dream dissolves, and being ends. 



280 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

The spring returned, and May once more 

Revived the pulses of the year, 
That church-yard old, so grim before, 

Showed life and verdure even there. 

Again the scene I lingered o'er. 

Where I had mused in autumn's pride ; 

All still was there I saw before, 

But where was she that graced my side ? 

Apart from men there smiles a spot. 
And heaven's own calm pervades the ground ; 

She there reposes, not forgot, 

The blue above, the green around ! 

But these are not the grass and sky 
Which on her native river shine ; 

The sleepers by her side that lie 

Did ne'er their hands with hers entwine. 

Far to the east her kindred sleep. 

In seemly order, side by side ; 
Or live, the untimely fate to weep 

Of one who was their love and pride. 

No matter, — 't is no matter where 
The wasted form shall spring to life ; 

With her let me be buried there. 
In death to slumber with that wife. 



VALUE OF MONUMENTS. 




ILLIONS upon millions have been lavished 
upon monuments, grand specimens of ar- 
chitecture, masterpieces in the fine arts, and 
works of skill and taste intended to give pleasure, 
but to yield no revenue. The propriety of con- 
suming human industry and capital in such under- 
takings has been always questioned ; they have al- 
ways had defenders. Much may be said in vindica- 
tion of their refining influence, their power to keep 
alive the sacred love of country, the flame of liberty, 
awaken the memory and provoke the emulation of 
noble deeds and public benefactors. 

These are influences of great value, lofty, power- 
ful, and pure in their effects. They have conse- 
quently been frequently urged in justification of 
great expenditures of money for what has been 
characterized as frivolous, useless, or ostentatious. 
We propose, however, now to pass all these consid- 
erations by, and measure their worth by their eco- 
nomical result in money. It will be embarrassing, 
we are aware, to prove the Pyramids a dividend- 



282 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

paying stock. Yet, putting them, the Obelisks, the 
Sphinx, Memnon, the Catacombs, with the ruins of 
the old cities on the Nile together, and saying noth- 
ing of the Cataracts, they must be admitted, one and 
all, to have caused foreign gold to be scattered over 
Egypt, though probably a small percentage upon 
the original investment in those works. The Pyra- 
mids must be allowed to be one of the very worst 
outlays of capital in existence ; yet even that is not 
entirely dead. 

None of these structures, however, can compare 
in point of a revenue-yielding work with the temple 
of St. Peter's. This, with the entertaining exhibi- 
tions there, looking on them with an eye to profit 
merely, and in a worldly point of view, must pay a 
handsome income on the first cost of the building, 
enormous as it was. Such expensive architecture 
cannot in conscience be recommended with a view 
of profits. Yet nothing is more certain than that 
such architectural wonders as this chef-d'oeuvre of 
Buonarotti and the other great cathedrals and stu- 
pendous towers and monuments of the Old World, 
have not been money entirely thrown away, as gen- 
erally represented. Nobody can tell the revenue 
they yield, paid voluntarily and silently by travel- 
lers. It is an unobserved but steady stream running 
into those countries which possess such works, and 
likely to augment from year to year, when the ease 



VALUE OF MONUMENTS. 283 

of communication offers an irresistible temptation for 
everybody to visit every place and gaze at every- 
thing. 

As the gigantic works of man, erected apparently 
to gratify his pride, or the vanity of kings, neverthe- 
less are followed by advantages of pecuniary prof- 
it to the countries which executed them, perhaps 
without any such expectation, other great works 
exist in which human ingenuity had no hand, that 
are such source of annual wealth. They cost the 
people nothing where they are, yet are the best 
property they have. What would Switzerland be 
without her mountains ? The melting glaciers run 
down their sides under the summer sun. The world 
flocks thither to see it, while the coin in the pockets 
of the sight-seers dissolves in streams, and irrigates 
the whole territory which has the fortune to possess 
such fertilizers of her soil. 

A report was current not long since, which has 
been recently revived, that some one had discovered 
a method by which Vesuvius could be prevented 
from making a periodic exhibition of itself. This 
would really be a monster project, worthy of the 
monster king of Naples ; stupid because impractica- 
ble ; more silly — were it not ? — for it then would 
blow up the capital and himself. What do the fat- 
uous of the Old World think they are visited for ? 
Themselves ? The last things a man of sense would 



284 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

go a mile to see. A man travels to foreign lands 
to see the reliques of former ages, what the people 
of antiquity have left behind them, quite as much 
as what their weak descendants are performing. 
And, especially, men traverse inhospitable regions, 
the more so sometimes the better, to witness nature 
under strange aspects and in her most extraordinary 
moods. Vesuvius, and what Vesuvius has done, are 
among the principal treasures of that dark corner 
of Italian despotism. 

Deprive her of her museums, so richly filled with 
the spoils of her burning mountain, — take away the 
glorious skies which God has given her, the incom- 
parable natural beauty of her land and air and water, 
— and what will there then be for a traveller to 
see ? NothincT but an imbecile and inhuman Bour- 
bon on the throne, and a beggarly people crouching 
at its base. And, to keep to our pecuniary valuation 
of the wonders of art and nature, his revenue would 
soon proclaim the deprivation. Robbed of Vesu- 
vius and other natural attractions, the foolish despot 
would soon find out that he had lost the richest 
jewels in his crown. 

It is not only those who possess harbors, railroads, 
and canals, that levy tolls upon the world, but they 
who erect a column on Bunker Hill, to gaze upon ; 
a Broadway lined by stone and marble, to prome- 
nade in ; a gallery of pictures, or statues, to gratify 



VALUE OF MONUMENTS. 285 

the taste, or a Park to regale the senses. The 
splendid residence and beautiful grounds of one 
man of elegant perceptions have been known to 
build up a town ; and the cultivation and indul- 
gence of similar dispositions on a larger scale made 
Athens what it was, Paris what it is, and will con- 
tribute, as well as the more gross calculations of 
trade, to advance the growth of New York, and 
expand its commerce. Enlightened men have known 
this always, and have therefore been, and still are, 
the advocates of the rising column, the massive 
church and its towering spire, the colossal pillar 
and fretted dome, the observatory and university. 
They are patrons of these, of course, on account of 
their appropriate design. To this we do not no-vv 
refer. They are also favorable for their general 
attractions to travellers, to transient residents, to 
temporary and to permanent business. All these 
are attended with pecuniary emoluments, and go 
to create cities where they are not, and where they 
are, to convert them to emporiums. 




CHRISTMAS. 




H, the merry, merry bells of Christmas ! how 
they entwine themselves with the memories 
of our youthful days, when time had its 
quick-succeeding joys and sorrows, — seasons of hap- 
piness bubbling up and overflowing the full fountain 
of the heart ; and then again seasons when it did 
not play any more than a New- York fountain, nor 
send up its sparkling jet of joy into the sunny sky, 
but all was sombre and overclouded. There were 
holidays and festivals, Saturday nights, moonlights, 
and sleigh-rides then, with the jingling bells. If the 
heart had its sorrow and dark passages, it had also 
its little streaks of sunlight streaming between the 
clouds ; and life was not, as among the mature and 
advanced, a perpetual, dull, crepuscular shining 
through a hazy atmosphere, or a flat, straight turn- 
pike-road, with neither turning, nor rise nor fall, 
nor shade-tree, nor pretty landscape on either side 
to entertain the traveller on his journey. 

No matter though life be a checker-board, if, when 
one is passing over the black squares, the white ones 



CHRISTMAS. 287 

are only visible ahead, the passage will seem not 
long, and the shadows of the dark will be relieved 
by the light of the bright spots. Beside, Youth has 
this remarkable advantage : it neither anticipates nor 
remembers evil and sorrow, while Age does both. 
Look at the child : pain must be actually present to 
make itself felt ; and the joyous young thing is not 
to be cheated of Heaven's gift of happiness by any 
trick of the imagination, or by looking forward, or 
backward, or one side or the other. Superior to the 
philosopher, it is no believer in abstract ideas, and is 
therefore saved from the whole mischievous crew of 
evils, that come in those disguises. Youth is happy 
when its senses are not pricked, and no tangible rea- 
son exists why it should not be so ; while manhood 
makes itself miserable, when it fails to prove itself 
the contrary by a process of abstract reasoning. 

Fortunate is the man who feels in his soul when 
Christmas has come, and has not lost his relish for 
the simple festival seasons of the calendar. It is 
well to be resolute in business, to be ambitious of 
honest fame, and even for some persons to be ab- 
sorbed in the giant task of saving their country. 
But for most of us, a corner of the heart had better 
be reserved for the residence of quiet thoughts 
and satisfaction amid the desperate struggles of the 
world. It is best for one to snatch as much enjoy- 
ment as he can, from the floods or fires that are 



288 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

burning up or drowning human hopes all around 
him. We will resolve not to lose, if we can help it, 
a single one of the games and gayeties, freaks and 
follies of Christmas eve, or morn, or noon, or night. 
We will not let one stick fall out of the fagot in 
which, on Christmas, delights are bound up, and 
which makes the blessed Nativity what it is, and has 
been, immemorially away back in the dim days of 
the distant past. We will not forget to be happy 
ourselves, as some do, when the time for it, long an- 
ticipated, actually arrives. 

But that must not be all. We must remember 
to make others happy also, if in our power, once at 
least a year, and that at Christmas, and as much 
oftener as we are able. But when Christmas comes, 
let everybody around us know it, — those under 
our roof, those in our neighborhood. Let us prove 
that our Saviour did not die for nought ; but that 
his shed blood has been converted to a stream of 
charity to the destitute, and consolation to the un- 
happy. What ! shut up the heart at such a blessed 
season ! Our inclement climate compels the closing 
of doors; otherwise they should all stand open, and 
every household should be free to all as Heaven's 
common on that day. 

The first of the year is a meagre shadow and imi- 
tation in this respect of what Christmas ought to be 
in substance. The coffers of the rich are running 



CHRISTMAS. 289 

over; why not let the poor hold their empty cups to 
catch the overflow ? The bags of grain are burst- 
ing in the corn-house ; there are deserving people 
enough who will be glad to stop the leak and prevent 
the loss. No need that fruits should rot in the bins 
or barrels, or coats be devoured by the moths. 
Christmas is a remedy for all this mischief, and 
mouths and backs enough are open and ready to 
save them all from ruin. Heaven provides enough, 
in the worst of times, to satisfy all its children, if the 
fences, obstacles, and tricks of men did not hinder it 
from reaching the needy consumer. For the selfish 
and unbrotherly contrivances to tax the poor, the 
hard, unsympathizing possessors of property sustain 
losses which would be very near sufficient for their 
reasonable desires. 

And Christmas is a powerful preacher of grati- 
tude for the Evangel, Heaven's best gift to man, 
and of the charities and kindnesses of life, as well 
as the fomenter of a host of frolicsome humors. St. 
Nicholas, the children's benefactor, who, good fellow 
as he is, is bountiful by stealth, and takes as much 
pains to avoid notice as other people do to purchase 
it, — this patron of little folks takes the eve of 
Christmas to revisit the earth, and scatter his comi- 
cal gifts, like the night dew, all over the land. Oh, 
the merry, merry bells of Christmas I Well have 
good spirits been imagined to tenant them, with 

19 



290 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

power to chase away all evil ones from tlie neigh- 
borhood with their sweet and holy melodies. As 
thus animated, they have received the rites of bap- 
tism from the Church, and borne upon their brazen 
fronts divers wdld or sacred inscriptions; one of 
which is just at hand in the recent " Golden Le- 
gend " of Longfellow, which runs as follows : — 

" Laudo Deum verum ! Funera plango ! 

Plebem voco ! Fulgora frango ! 

Congrego clerum ! Sabbata pango ! " 

The same beautiful poem has the following on 
bells: — 

" For the bells tliemselves are the best of preachers : 
Then- brazen lips are learned teachers, 
From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air, 
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw. 
Shriller than trumpets under the Law, 
Now a sermon and now a prayer. 
The clangorous hammer is the tongue, 
This way, that way, beaten and swung. 
That from mouth of brass, as from mouth of gold. 
May be taught the Testaments, New and Old. 
And above it the great cross-beam of wood 
Representeth the Holy Rood, 
Upon which, like the bell, our hopes are hung. 
And the wheel wherewith it is swayed and rung 
Is the mind of man, that round and round 
Sways, and maketh the tongue to sound ! ' ' 

Chime on, ye Christmas bells, and bear on your 
silvery waves the good news of the Evangel. The 
people will pause to listen to the unusual annuncia- 
tion from their ponderous tongues, — " Peace on 
earth and good- will among men." 



THE BURIAL. 

Make way ! make way ! for the prostrate dead ! 
She leaves forever her long-jjrest bed, 
To make her couch in the dark cold tomb ; 
Make room for the dead to pass ! make room ! 

She stays not for darkness, cold, nor storm ; 
The crowd gives way to the lifeless form ; 
The steamer awaits the silent freight, 
For Death goes free, and is never late! 

Away ! away ! o'er the sullen tide ! 
On its restless bosom she may not bide. 
Blow high, ye winds, and thunders roar ! 
She hears your rattling blast no more. 

No pause, no rest, for that lonely one. 
Where the life-pulse beats, where shines the sun. 
On ! onward she hastes through the ranks of men, 
As the cloud's black shade cuts the sunlit plain. 

The journey is closed. Here the cypress keeps 
Its solemn watch, and the willow weeps. 
The village kindred repose below ; 
Above waves the grass, and flowers blow. 

Now, fare thee well, thou much-loved clay ! 
We must leave thee here with the worm to-day. 
No, no, my soul ; be not thus cast down ! 
Look up ! for thither thy friend has gone ! 




THE WANING YEAR. 




IME — Time — Time is — what ? He is 
" the oldest inhabitant " of this rather 
dingy island of ours, dashed up by the col- 
lision of two great oceans, — the infinite Past and 
the infinite Future. He lives in the sparkling white 
momentary ripples, which, like little children's feet, 
run upon the smooth, sandy beach, when the tide 
is flowing in, and then run back again to sink for- 
ever in the dark, illimitable sea. Time is somebody 
in the old family-clock that is saying, tick, tick, 
tick, all day long, and is busy at the same work 
also the lifelong night, when one is lying awake, and 
watching for Christmas or New- Year's coming, or 
thinking of a dear child or friend who is no more. 
I remember to have heard the same stroke at that 
still and awful moment when my father died. 
It sounded very loud then to my ear, and struck 
directly on my heart. A parent holds down his 
great gold watch to the ear of his wondering boy, 
and tells him that the mysterious noise within 
comes from a little fellow cutting wood, — pleasanter 



THE WANING YEAR. 293 

intelligence than to inform him truly, that it is made 
by old Time, whetting his remorseless scythe, so 
sharp already, to cut in two the stripling's thread 
of life. 

But the singular individual we call Time is not 
always engaged in occupations such as these, and 
in climbing up into great church-steeples, to chime 
out the solitary hours, as they are born into exist- 
ence and die away again along the old mouldy 
tombs, which darken and consecrate their long 
shadows. He can move about as deftly as a cat at 
a mouse-hole, or as gingerly as a doctor in the per- 
fumed chamber of a wealthy invalid. Nobody sees 
him do it, yet he is softly planting indubitable 
wrinkles continually in the prettiest of faces, and 
gets from his furrow exceeding good crops, too, in 
a few brief years. The premonitory and alarming 
crow's-feet in reality are nothing but his footprints. 
There is not a barber among them all who is his 
match "for thinning our flowing hair," and powder- 
ing it with the salt that is destined to preserve it in 
the grave, long after we have done with it our- 
selves. 

To do him justice, however, he is not always, it 
must be owned, employed in mischief He also 
causes the young moustache to bud, swells into fair 
proportions the maiden's ductile limbs, clothes her 
cheek with vermilion down, richer than the 



294 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

peach-bloom, and weaves her curlmg tresses into 
" springes to catch woodcocks." 

Yet more. When bereavement has torn our 
hearts, and affliction planted in the memory a rooted 
sorrow which medicine is unable to pluck out, there 
Time, the good physician, humanely hastens, though 
unsent for, to pour upon the wound the oblivion- 
drop we all require in turn, for we are human, 

" and must feel calamity as men ; 



We cannot but remember such things were, 
That were most preciovis to us." 

On such occasions Time calmly and kindly interposes 
his dusky wing between us and the past, screens it 
from the sight, and thus softens for us the bitterest 
sorrows. 

He is ever bringing sad changes upon people with 
more or less rapidity, though oftentimes as slow as 
the hour-hand of a clock in sermon-time. All wax 
old sufficiently fast no doubt, yet, while one is look- 
ing at it, he is scarcely able to discern the almost 
imperceptible shadow creeping over the familiar 
countenance, and dimming the lustre of its beauty. 
But let an interval pass by, and look again ! A por- 
tion of its original brightness has departed, and can 
never be relit. Notwithstanding an occasional ap- 
parent pause, yet, on the whole. Time is a swift trav- 
eller. Steam and the telegraph are added to our 
ancient velocities, and still it can be affirmed with 



THE WANING YEAR. 295 

emphasis that Time flies ! His speed is, after all, un- 
matched, for he posts from this world to the next — 
a fearful distance — in the twinkling of an eye, and 
carries us with him in his car. 

There is a period in life when Time appears to be 
almost standing still. That period is youth. Look- 
ing forward, as the young do, to future objects in 
long perspective. Time seems as motionless to them 
as a distant waterfall. They grow older, and, on 
approaching, find their error. Soon, however, an 
opposite one occurs. Old age arrives, and the senses 
become so bewildered with the extreme rapidity of 
the fleeting moments, that, sometimes, like physical 
bodies moving with immense velocity through space, 
they overtask the faculty of appreciation, and become 
invisible. To the aged, " the present " is nothing, 
and " we live " becomes an expression in the past 
tense. 

Time — Time — Time is — where ? He is in the 
flower-garden, pulling open with subtle fingers the 
petals of a rose-bud on a summer morning. He is 
in the woodlands, raining down the decaying foliage 
of the aged chestnut in the autumn. He is omni- 
present : at the self-same moment undermining the 
venerable monarch of the forest and the thrones of 
the Bourbons and Hapsburgs; covering over an(l 
obliterating with the brown moss of the churchyard 
the memorials on the head-stones of the dead ; and, 



296 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

responsivelj to the solemn voices of the old clock in 
the corner, " beating funeral-marches to the tomb " 
within the bosoms of all the living. Listen ! Hear 
his hollow voice within and around us, saying, as 
the clock says at every dull swing of the pendulum, 
— "Prepare, prepare!" It is a startling thing, 
sometimes, to hear the old time-piece speaking after 
its maker is in the grave. This monition is all 
that Time can utter ; a voice of warning is his no 
more. A passage across the domain of life he 
secures us, but at its confines his journey with us 
ends, and we must afterwards go on alone. If we 
have taken care to have our passports duly vised 
before quitting his dominions, it will be well. 




REBELLION AGAINST A FREE GOVERN- 
MENT. 

Oppressed with years, and blind, 

I still could bear these; but my mind 

Is doomed a heavier grief to feel, — 

My country drenched in gore from her own children's steel. 

Most beautiful of earth ! 

Land of my ripest choice, and birth, 

How can my heart be ever false to thee, 

Who bearest a mother's love — and only love — to me ? 

The worm spares not the tree 

Whence he derives vitality; 

The beast will turn and rend, in mutual strife, 

The parent-brute from which he drew the stream of life : 

But man, of spirit sprung. 

The first God's visible works among, 

When grown a traitor, sinks below them all, 

And, basest of the base, can never deeper fall. 

I've searched through every age, 

And found on history's blood-red page 

That Treason is of blackest crimes the worst. 

By Heaven detested, and by all mankind accursed. 



298 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

And must I sit and sigh, 

Nor strike one blow for Liberty, 

While Rebel hands are tearing down the fane, 

Which, once demolished here, may never rise again ? 

List ! list ! cheer up, my soul ! 

Away the Rebel squadrons roll ; 

The distant thunder of their hoofs I hear, — 

Sweet music ringing to a weary loyal ear. 

The cannon's awful roar 

Shall shake and terrify no more. 

On the battlefield, where strong men fought and fell, 

The timid flower shall spring and spread its spicy spell. 

My country ! sweetest name ! 
Henceforth I 've given thee up to fame ; 
Rebellion vanquished. Freedom looked and smiled, 
Fair Liberty and thou, — the Mother and the Child. 

Our Western Paradise, 
Of serpent-treason purged, shall rise ; 
Serene in Union, she shall fear no harm, 
From enemies intestine, or from foreign arm. 

'T will not be mine to see 

My country's coming destiny ; 

Then some young IMilton's muse sublime shall tell 

Where streamed the patriot flag, where the Rebel banner fell. 

This only may I say, 

That none again shall see the day 

When man shall dare his brother's blood to draw, 

To curse mankind with slave rebellion or slave law. 





FAREWELL. 

HE girls have been all the forenoon packing 
their huge trunks ; and now the labor is 
ended, and the order is given, " John, strap 
your mistresses' baggage, and bring it down into 
the hall to be ready for the carriage at three o'clock." 
A depressing sight, those corpulent trunks, depos- 
ited side by side. Painful associations are awakened 
by some of them. They have a history ; the Past 
is disinterred, and contrasts dimly and disagreeably 
with the Present, like candles burning in the sun- 
shine, and a transient faintness passes through the 
frame. Reassured, we are standing next upon the 
pier. The brave steamer, like a racer, impatient 
for the start, feels the strong impulse of internal fire 
and life, and seems clamorous at delay. Mary and 
Charlotte are on board ; the parting kiss has been 
given; a " God be with you" breathed ; and the 
last farewell but half whispered, for the choking 
throat refused to utter it. 

Alas ! alas ! how much unhappiness is bound up 
in that soft word, farewell ! We are aware it is 



300 AUTUMN LEAVES. 

sometimes uttered lightly. To us it ever has a 
tone of melancholy, — sometimes almost of sorrow, 
and even despair. It can never again become a 
common word to us ; for we have known it hallowed 
by quick-following suffering and death. It flows 
trippingly from the lips of the vigorous and young, 
upon a supposed temporary parting ; but it has, in 
such cases, often proved a last, long farewell, never 
to be repeated, never to be forgotten. How. many 
such solemn last words are interchanged with friends 
at this season of the year, when multitudes are 
gayly planning sepai'ations, little dreaming they are 
to be eternal ! 

It is indeed a serious thing to part, even for a 
night ; and many never omit those touching customs 
which presuppose and provide for the sudden, per- 
haps instantaneous, occurrence of the greatest of 
events. In such an evanescent state, shall individ- 
uals and families thoughtlessly, and without the least 
good reason, plunge blindly into the hazards of an 
everlasting separation from their friends ? If mod- 
ern improvements have almost repealed the laws 
of nature, they have not, as we fondly hope, quite 
done away with those of the aflPections, though we 
fear they have materially impaired their tenderness 
and force. 

But the boasted advancement of human skill 
and power is still limited indeed, and has scarcely 



FAREWELL. 301 

touched at all the two grand phenomena of life and 
death. Man is just as mortal as he ever was, and 
has little more control than formerly of his ebbing 
sands. The sober word farewell has lost nothing 
of its sadness. Though it has rung so long and 
often in our ears, we still wait with tearful eyes yet 
perhaps smiling lips, while they drink in these 
mournful syllables as greedily as ever, and convey 
them directly to the heart. It is a word which can 
never be vulgarized by use. On the contrary, it 
acquires a more significant meaning and a higher 
sanctity from year to year. The associations of the 
departed cluster round it, as being the final word 
w^hich passed between the living and the dying. At 
moments, particularly when the heart is softened by 
misfortune, mortality, or the separation of families 
or friends for considerable periods, the affectionate 
accents of the old familiar term, fai^ewell, have a 
magic potency in peopling the soul with memories 
of the departed, the absent, and the dead, con- 
nected with anxious misgivings and monitions in 
relation to the present and the living. 

Chastised, if not subdued, by tender sentiments 
like these, I now bid Adieu, perhaps forever, to the 
few or many who have done Ine the honor of giving 
me their company, and listening to any portion of 
the reflections contained in the 




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mm:(^x 



